"Pick off the ones nearest the gate--don't let 'em touch the bolts--it's good for another ten minutes if we can keep them from it," came the doctor's voice in jerks, as he leant over the parapet just above the centre of the door below, and carried out his own orders with deadly effect; though his heart sank when he saw that some of the prisoners were unironed--or rather unironed on one leg, and that they were armed with the other iron; a deadly enough weapon at close quarters. Besides, it meant more treachery. It meant a previous filing of the ankle-fetters; and if others in the remaining sections were as free-- He shot quicker, steadier, while Eugene Smith and Vincent, one above the other on the top of the stair, did the same, taking the intruders on the flank. It was growing lighter every instant, the air was clearer, the breeze of dawn was sweeping the smoke of the rifles riverwards, the great white wheel of the gaol was growing broader in its outlines, the shadows were shrinking. But the storm seemed still there, in the ceaseless reverberations. "They're up to something in the far corner!" called Eugene. "What is it, Dillon? You can see better." The doctor ceased firing for a second, and ran farther down the parapet. "The keys! the keys!" he shouted back. "They are trying to pass in the keys! Shoot the devils--those in the corner! Don't let 'em--or the gaol is gone!" So, for the next minute, it was deadly work down in that corner by the crevice through which some unseen hand was thrusting something. Three times a man, clutching at the prize, fell in a heap ere he touched it. Then a fourth pitched forward against the doors with the keys in his hand, and a fifth, groping for them, rolled over on his side with them hidden under his dead body. And from outside the gate came rendings, and crashings, and yells; from above, that call, "Shoot straight, or the gaol's gone!" Muriel crept out from shelter, possessed once more by that frantic desire to see to the very end, and stood looking down on those two on the stairs. She gave a faint cry when Vincent flung his rifle away, and ran down to that ten-foot drop for revolver practice. At the sound, her husband gave one quick look up, and followed suit. But their own success was against them. The growing pile of the wounded formed a barricade, behind which a man, squirming with covetous hands among the dead and dying, found what he sought. "He's got them! Stop him! stop him!" There was a fusillade, the man dropped; but the keys were in another hand--another--another--passing outwards from the crush--outwards towards that low door at the end of the narrow alley. Without a word, Vincent, revolver in hand, let himself drop on the heads below. "Oh, don't, Vincent, don't!" came a woman's voice; and at the sound, another man gave that swift look up once more, and followed suit.