The blows beat upward against the hatch and ceased. He sprang erect, slid an arm around her and dragged her back--not a second too soon. A gun exploded against the hinges at their feet, blowing one loose. John saw the crevice gaping and the muzzle of a gun pushed through to prise it open. He leaped upon the hatch, pistol in hand. "Forty-sixth! Forty-sixth!" What was that? Through the open crevice a British cheer answered him. The man levering against his weight lost hold of the gun, leaving it jammed. John heard the slide and thud of his fall. "Hallo!" hailed a cheerful voice from the foot of the ladder. "You there!--open the trap-way and show us some light!" John knelt, slipped back the bolt, and turned to Diane. She had fallen on her knees--but what had happened to her? She was cowering before the joy in his face, shrinking away from him and yet beseeching. "Le pistolet--donne-moi le pistolet!"--her voice hissed on the word, her eyes petitioned him desperately. "Ah, de grace! tu n'a pas le droit--" He understood. With a passing bitter laugh he turned from her entreaties and hurled the pistol across the battlements into air. A hand flung open the hatch. A British officer--Etherington, Major of the Forty-sixth--pushed his head and shoulders through he opening and stared across the leads, panting, with triumphant jolly face. CHAPTER XXIV. THE FORT SURRENDERS. The red-coats, who had forced their way up the tower by weight of numbers and at the point of the bayonet, were now ordered to face about and clear the stairway; which they did, driving the mixed rabble of Canadians and Indians down before them, and collecting the dead and wounded as they went. Five of the Oneidas had been bayoneted or trampled to death in the struggle; two of the garrison would never fight again, and scarcely a man had escaped cuts or bruises. But Diane, as she followed her father's body down the stairs, knew nothing of this. The dead and wounded had been removed. The narrow lancet windows let in a faint light, enough to reveal some ugly stains and splashes on the walls; but she walked with fixed unseeing eyes. Once only on the way down her foot slid on the edge of a slippery step, and she shivered. In the sunlight outside the doorway a group of men, mauled and sullen, some wearing bandages, others with blood yet trickling down their faces, stood listening to an altercation between M. Etienne and a couple of spick-and-span British officers. As their Commandant's body came through the doorway they drew together with a growl. Love was in that sound, and sorrow, and helpless rage. One or two broke into sobs. The British officers--one of them was the General himself, the other his messenger, Captain Muspratt--bared their heads. M. Etienne, checked in the midst of an harangue, stepped to Diane and took her hand tenderly.