"Retire, Virginia, for a moment; ’tis only the patrol, or some affair of that sort. I would not have you discovered here for the world." She had only time to shrink into a corner, and conceal herself behind the carriage of a piece of ordnance, when a man approached the turret. It was the corporal of the guard, who usually came every night before the drums beat, to see that the prisoners were all right. The door was of massive oak, studded with iron nails, and while the corporal was undoing its ponderous fastenings, a sudden thought occurred to Lisle. "Be on the alert, Mulroony," said he; "I will now endeavour to escape, or die in the attempt!" "Right, yer honner! I’m yer man. Lave me to dale wid that spalpeen ov a corporal, and by the holy Saint Peter! I won’t lave a whole bone in his skin." "Hush! let us only compel him to give up the watchword, and then we will gag and bind him hard and fast. I need keep faith no longer with those who doubt my parole." The unsuspecting Frenchman opened the door and looked in, merely to assure himself that the prisoners were in their cage. "Come in, corporal dear," said Mulroony, grasping him by the throat, and dragging him into the chamber. "_Sacre—diable!_" growled the astonished Gaul, struggling with his athletic adversary, who tripped up his heels, and in a twinkling laid him on his back, and pressed his knees upon his breast. "Och, honey! don’t be in such a divel ov a flustheration! Give but the smallest cry in life, and it’s yer neck I’ll be dhrawin’ like a pullet’s!" "_Merci, monsieur! Ah, miséricorde!_" gasped the half-strangled soldier. "Come, _monsieur caporal_!" said Louis fiercely; "surrender the countersign, or expect such treatment as desperate men may yield you. Mulroony, take your hand from his throat. Answer, Frenchman, at your peril!" "MARENGO!" replied the other, and commenced immediately to bellow aloud for his comrades; but his cries were drowned in the singing of the wind and noise of the Nive, which rushed over a steep cascade below the bastion. "Och, murther! it’s all over now; he’ll bring the whole pack on us wid his schreechin’,—the devil dhraw the tongue out ov ye! Tunder an’ oons! Thurf and blazes! what’s this he is after now?" Paddy soon discovered that, and to his cost. The corporal, on getting one hand free, drew his bayonet, and plunged it into the arm of his antagonist, who no sooner found himself wounded, than he broke into a tremendous storm of passion. Thundering out one of those formidable curses which come so glibly from an Irish tongue, he wrested the weapon from the Frenchman, and buried it twice in his breast. All this passed in less than a minute, and the Frenchman expired without a groan. "Mulroony, have you killed him?" asked Louis, considerably excited. "Deed have I, sir,—the murderin’ villyan!" answered the other composedly. "Poor fellow! I had no intention that he should be slain. He was but doing his duty."