But where resistance took a truly epic character was in the house of Thomas Saunders. With twenty-three comrades he held in check all assaults _during four entire days_. Not content with scalding the bailiffs by means of pumps and cauldrons installed on purpose, he had, by a stroke of genius, the idea of throwing on them hives of bees, that came out enraged from their cells and cruelly stung everything before them. Who knows that there may not be in this a precious indication for future warfare! European strategists may before long add “the chaste dew-drinkers,” as Victor Hugo called them, to the pigeons and the war-dogs. However that may be, Joyce’s mercenaries, burnt, stung, and crest-fallen, were compelled, for three nights running, to retreat on Portumna. The green flag meanwhile was proudly waving its folds on the summit of Saunders’ house, which enraptured Ireland, intoxicated with joy at the news of this unprecedented siege, immediately baptized _Fort Saunders_. Agitation was fast spreading over the whole country. The military authorities judged it indispensable to send down 200 mounted men, and to have the place patrolled at night. In Portumna councils of war were held, and serious thoughts were entertained of having recourse to the antique battering-ram and “tortoise” in order to approach the place and succeed in taking it. Three days passed in new preparations and supplementary armaments. At last, on the 27th of August, a new assault was attempted. It failed like all the others, but the law must, it was felt, at all costs, be enforced; the police interfered about some technical point, took the house at the bayonet’s point and made all its inmates prisoners. Thus ended, without effusion of blood, this memorable campaign; three weeks’ preparation, eight days’ fighting, a thousand men on foot, enormous expense had been required in order to succeed in evicting four tenants of the Marquis of Clanricarde, out of a number of 316, and that in the midst of scandalous scenes which gave the noisiest publicity to the agrarian cause. Everybody was of opinion that enough had been done, and evictions were stopped.