"Tell him to uncover," said Serazin; but one of the aids-de-camp, more zealous than courteous, stepped forward and knocked the hat off with his hand. Dowall never budged an inch, nor moved a muscle, at this insult; to look at him you could not have said that he was conscious of it. "Ask him if it was by his orders that the guard was assailed?" said the General. I put the question in about as many words but he made no reply. "Does the man know where _he_ is? Does he know who _I_ am?" repeated Serazin, passionately. "He knows both well enough, sir," said I; "this silence is a mere defiance of us." "Parbleu!" cried an officer, "that is the 'coquin' took poor Delactre's equipments; the very uniform he has on was his." "The fellow was never a soldier," said another. "I know him well," interposed a third, "he is the very terror of the townsfolk." "Who gave him his commission?--who appointed him?" asked Serazin. Apparently the fellow could follow some words of French, for as the General asked this he drew from his pocket a crumpled and soiled paper, which he threw heedlessly upon the table before us. "Why this is not his name, sir," said I: "this appointment is made out in the name of Nicholas Downes, and our friend here is called Dowall." "Who knows him? who can identify him?" asked Serazin. "I can say that his name is Dowall, and that he worked as a porter on the quay in this town when I was a boy," said a young Irishman who was copying letters and papers at a side-table. "Yes, Dowall," said the youth, confronting the look which the other gave him, "I am neither afraid nor ashamed to tell you to your face that I know you well, and who you are, and what you are." "I'm an officer in the Irish Independent Army now," said Dowall, resolutely. "To the divil I fling the French commission and all that belongs to it. 'Tisn't troops that run and guns that burst we want. Let them go back again the way they came, we're able for the work ourselves." Before I could translate this rude speech an officer broke into the room, with tidings that the streets had been cleared, and the rioters dispersed; a few prisoners of the squad, too, were taken, whose muskets bore trace of being recently discharged. "They fired upon our pickets, General," said the officer, whose excited look and voice betrayed how deeply he felt the outrage. The men were introduced; three ragged, ill-looking wretches, apparently only roused from intoxication by the terror of their situation, for each was guarded by a soldier with a drawn bayonet in his hand. "We only obeyed ordhers my lord; we only did what the Captain tould us;" cried they in a miserable, whining tone, for the sight of their leader in captivity had sapped all their courage. "What am I here for? Who has any business with _me_?" said Dowall, assuming before his followers, an attempt at his former tone of bully.