He fell, poor madman, with so many of his fellows that the stairs ran blood, and our assailants, reeling before our fire, made barricades of the dead to fight from cover. Only when we had spent our last cartridge dared they charge again, led now by an old grey fanatic, waving a banner looted from some church, and screaming of Babylon and the Scarlet Woman. A bullet from his following gave him peace. And then we had only our swords, our good straight swords, making a fence of steel about our Lady's life. Her life? It sounds a little inconsistent, but it was our turn first. We hoped for our Lady a nobler death, in a greater quarrel than this fight with thieves--that is, we ought to have so reasoned had there been time. It is only after the fight that one has leisure to invent all the good reasons. For the time we guarded her Majesty just because we loved her; fought for her, not with reasoning but with sheer hard steel. The surgeons came with their long knives, and stood with us shoulder to shoulder for the defence of their wards; all sick and wounded men able to stand joined us with crutch or stick to fight for the Queen; the ladies, driven from their nursing, came to die with us, and many a Palace servant and stray civilian. So went the fight reeling along the corridor and into the rooms of state--a long, hard, desperate defence against overwhelming numbers. The horror of that battle was for the sick, thrown over in their cots, the dying trampled under, the helpless nursing sisters, and those of us who fell. Pretty things have been said about the Guard, but the word "Heroic" is strangely misapplied to us who thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We were having a good fight, free from all doubts and misgivings; for being to all intents and purposes already dead, we had nothing left to be alarmed about. But her Majesty, covering Trooper Browne when he was hurt, and engaging three assailants to her lone sword--that was heroic. How that great stormy spirit rose in danger! She had never seemed to us so royal as when, wounded and bleeding, she rallied us in the throne room, looked about her laughing, and said she would not retreat another inch. She mounted the dais, sat in the chair of state, and laying the red sword across her knees, looked down at her enemies.