The flag of truce was slain. His name was Furlong, a popular man. The insurgents, watching from above, beheld him lying prone--shot through the heart by an outpost sentinel. With fury they upbraided Harvey as an old dame for his ill-timed courtesy, vowing that they would obey no one but the priest that day. Maddened by the sight of that single corpse lying far below upon its face, they poured with the overwhelming impulse of a destroying flood unexpectedly set free down the steep declivity--an avenging awful host, numbering twenty thousand--and battered in the Three-bullet Gate. If the huge force could have been divided by scientific skill, an attack might have been made on the three gates at once, and every loyalist would have miserably perished. But even the priest was powerless to cope with the boiling throng. Yelling and screaming, by mere weight they drove in the pickets; cavalry went down like barley; nothing could withstand the avalanche. In vain the principal thoroughfare of New Ross was swept by the steady fire of artillery, which, falling on a dense mass of men wedged tight together in a narrow street, shore down the column's head as often as it rose. The legend of the dragon's teeth was realised that day; as fast as row drooped over row, so did other rows spring up, propelled by a giant force behind. One fanatic pushed to the gun's very muzzle, and, plunging in his hat and wig, cried, 'Come on, boys! her mouth's stopped!' The next moment he was blown into the air, but the gun was trodden down, dismounted--rendered useless; and the yeomanry retired under shelter. If the Croppies had obeyed their priest, all would have gone well. But much as they adored their Church, much as they longed for beatific rest in Paradise, they at this moment loved mundane whisky more. They plundered the houses of meat and drink, broached barrels in the market-place, poured fiery rivers of consolation down their parched gullets. In vain Mr. Harvey begged them to desist; in vain Father Roche threatened them with purgatorial ills. They snapped their fingers at their God and at His minister. Had they not already suffered hell? Well, then, they were used to it. Its terrors had ceased to fill their souls with dread.