carriage of the gun, holding his torch aloft, so as to shed a glaring light upon the assembled multitude of both parties, who stood now for a moment of truce, in wonder at the strange and gigantic figure before them. "Hold!" said he in a loud authoritative voice, and waving his hand with a commanding gesture over the ranks of the Roundheads who crowded round him. "Where is your commander, Worley?" "He is slain," answered twenty voices. "His blood be upon his own head. Where is he who commandeth in his stead?" "Here am I," said a short black visaged thick-set man. "Here am I, Ananias Proudfit, whom the Lord hath commissioned this night to take away the wicked from the land, and to root out the Amalekite, and the Jebusite, and the Perizzite, and the Hittite, and the Girgashite and the Amorite. And are not this council and this wicked Governor justly comparable to the five Kings who took shelter in the cave of Makkeda, who were"-- "Peace, brawler, peace," thundered the gigantic umpire, "and cease to pervert the word of God to thy murderous and unholy purposes. Take warning by the fate of thy predecessor. Thou would'st not listen to a more safe and peaceable admonition, administered in humility and good faith. Now I tell thee that if thou art still deaf, this good sword shall cleave thy hardened skull," and he drew his formidable weapon and brandished it over the torch. "Hah! sayest thou so," said the enraged Proudfit, aiming a deadly blow at the gigantic figure towering above him, but which the stranger struck aside with the ease of a wary and practised swordsman, and in the next moment as he had promised, drove his ponderous weapon into the skull of his assailant. Then hurling his torch into the advancing throng of the Independents, he brandished the huge glittering blade in fearful circles around the besieged gun, and quickly cleared a space for its more dexterous and effectual employment.