'A queer battle life is; ha, ha! Sturk laid low--the wretched fool! Widow--yes; children--ay. Charles! Charles! if there be a reckoning after death, your score's an ugly one. I'm tired of playing my part in this weary game of defence. Irons and I remain with the secret between us. Glasscock had his fourth of it, and tasted death. Then we three had it; and Sturk goes next; and now I and Irons--Irons and I--which goes first?' And he fell to whistling slowly and dismally, with his hands in his breeches' pockets, looking vacantly through his spectacles on the ever-running water, an emblem of the eternal change and monotony of life. In the meantime the party, with Tim Brian, the bare-shanked urchin, still in a pale perspiration, for guide, marched on, all looking ahead, in suspense, and talking little. On they marched, till they got into the bosky shadow of the close old whitethorn and brambles, and there, in a lonely nook, the small birds hopping on the twigs above, sure enough, on his back, in his regimentals, lay the clay-coloured image of Sturk, some blood, nearly black now, at the corners of his mouth, and under his stern brows a streak of white eye-ball turned up to the sky. There was a pool of blood under his pomatumed, powdered, and curled head, more under his right arm, which was slightly extended, with the open hand thrown palm upwards, as if appealing to heaven. Toole examined him. 'No pulse, by Jove! Quiet there! don't stir!' Then he clapped his ear on Sturk's white Marseilles vest. 'Hush!' and a long pause. Then Toole rose erect, but still on his knees, '_Will_ you be quiet there? I think there's some little action still; only don't talk, or shift your feet; and just--just, do be quiet!' Then Toole rose to his knees again, with a side glance fixed on the face of Sturk, with a puzzled and alarmed look. He evidently did not well know what to make of it. Then he slipped his hand within his vest, and between his shirt and his skin. 'If he's dead, he's not long so. There's warmth here. And see, get me a pinch or two of that thistle-down, d'ye see?' And with the help of this improvised test he proceeded to try whether he was still breathing. But there was a little air stirring, and they could not manage it. 'Well!' said Toole, standing this time quite erect, 'I--I think there's life there still. And now, boys, d'ye see? lift him very carefully, d'ye mind? Gently, very gently, for I tell you, if this haemorrhage begins again, he'll not last twenty seconds.' So on a cloak they lifted him softly and deftly to the bier, and laid covering over him; and having received Toole's last injunctions, and especially a direction to Mrs. Sturk to place him in a well-warmed bed, and introduce a few spoonfuls of warm port wine negus into his mouth, and if he swallowed, to continue to administer it from time to time, Sergeant Bligh and his men commenced their funereal march toward Sturk's house.