"Very good, sir;" and Dr. Richardson went away to take shelter behind the gun-pit parapet. Back came the remaining signalman with the replies: "Captain Bannerman will have much pleasure in supporting Commander Cummins, and will engage the two guns which are annoying him ". Cummins tore it up contemptuously. The second was from Parker: "Oil is being sent with utmost despatch". Pattison asked for orders. He could do no more with the gun, and was told to finish cutting down those trees—"They are probably aiming at them as much as at the gun." A few minutes went past, and then two marines came staggering up—one with blood flowing from his head, another with his arm limp at his side. A shrapnel had burst short. They fell down inside the breast-work, and Cummins sent them over to Dr. Richardson. They crawled across. Then the sentries down below on the zigzag path came running back. "Hundreds of men are coming up, sir; they look like sailors, sir." Cummins was perfectly prepared for this news, because half an hour ago he had seen a commotion among the cruisers in the harbour at his feet, and boats pulling to and from shore, and had guessed that they were landing sailors. "The only people they can rely upon," he thought, and told Glover to ask Captain Williams to bring his men back. "No hurry, Glover," as Glover, wild with excitement, was rushing off. "Wish to goodness I had never brought that boy," he muttered to himself. "If he gets bowled over his cousin will give me my marching orders like a shot. I am sure she will. "Plucky little fellow, too," he continued, as Glover came slowly back, alongside the huge Saunderson, at the head of his men. As they came up the slope a shell burst among them, and the smoke hid Glover and Saunderson for a moment, but the wind carried it away, and they reappeared, Saunderson steadying his men with a backward sweep of his arm. "That’s better, sir," he said to Cummins, his face glowing with pride as the Red Marines stepped quietly over the breast-work and lay down along-side their rifles. "Got ’em in hand all right now, sir." And Williams’s Blue Marines were just as well in hand, threw down their axes, and took their places without the least fuss or confusion—half of them in Sergeant Haig’s redoubt, half of them with Captain Williams behind the Log Redoubt. A minute or two passed, and then a few blue-coated Chinese came into sight, and a little crowd of them halted at an open corner of the zigzag path, then rapidly deployed into the bushes on each side. The men lying on the extreme right of the breast-work also caught sight of them, and without orders began easing off their rifles. The whole line would have been blazing away in another minute, firing blindly into the bushes beneath them, if Saunderson, his face red with rage, had not bounded across and stopped them. Cummins chuckled.