Then on the right--close beside his master's son--stood that brave and honest son of "Ould Erin," Patrick Keown, armed with an old-pattern dragoon sabre, which he had picked up cheap in some Cape Town store, and had had sharpened until its edge was as keen as that of a scythe. Patrick Keown was a splendid swordsman (he had been sergeant-instructor of fencing to the C.M.E.), and not a few Caffres had fallen beneath his stalwart arm during the fray; but, alas! that good right arm now hung powerless--for an assegai had pierced it through and through, and poor Patrick's coat-sleeve was literally saturated with the crimson stream that gushed from the wound--and it was his _left_ hand that was clenched within the basket hilt. Round these devoted men was gathered a mob of yelling savages, who thirsted for their blood, yet hesitated to come within reach of their formidable weapons. But it was impossible that such an unequal contest could last for more than a few minutes. Tom Flinders was the first of the trio who fell. Struck on the head by a jagged piece of rock, hurled by one of the infuriated Caffres, Tom dropped as if shot; and rolling between the wheels of the waggon lay motionless on his face--to all appearance dead. Almost at the same moment Captain Jamieson received a ghastly wound in the breast, and sinking lifeless to the bloodstained ground was instantly despatched by his ruthless assailants. Hard fate his, poor old man! to have fought through many a hotly-contested action with "foemen worthy of his steel;" to have survived the glorious perils of the Peninsula campaigns; and then at last to have fallen by the hand of a South African savage! When Sergeant-major Keown saw that his chief and his beloved master's son were both down, he gave utterance to a bitter cry of mingled rage and sorrow, and with uplifted sword rushed madly into the very midst of the exultant foe. Once--twice--thrice did his sabre flash in the sun, and each time that it descended a Caffre "bit the dust." Then a crushing blow from a knobkerrie--delivered from behind--brought the brave Irishman on his knees; he staggered up, and wiping away the blood that, streaming down his face, obscured his vision, he shortened his sword and thrust at the nearest Caffre, driving the keen point deep into his side; but the next moment a dozen assegais were plunged into Patrick Keown's body, and he fell to rise no more.