escape remained. The attempt would have been
hopeless, and he saw it.

'This is the man, general,' said I, half pushing him forward into the
middle of the room, where he stood with his hat on, and in an attitude
of mingled defiance and terror.

'Tell him to uncover,' said Serasin; but one of the aides-de-camp, more
zealous than courteous, stepped forward and knocked the hat off with his
hand. Dowall never budged an inch, nor moved a muscle, at this insult;
to look at him you could not have said that he was conscious of it.

'Ask him if it was by his orders that the guard was assailed,' said the
general.

I put the question in about as many words, but he made no reply.

'Does the man know where he is? does he know who I am?' repeated Serasin
passionately.

'He knows both well enough, sir,' said I; 'this silence is a mere
defiance of us.'

'_Parbleu!_' cried an officer, 'that is the _coquin_ took poor
Delaitre's equipments; the very uniform he has on was his.'

'The fellow was never a soldier,' said another.

'I know him well,' interposed a third--' he is the very terror of the
townsfolk.'

'Who gave him his commission?--who appointed him?' asked Serasin.

Apparently the fellow could follow some words of French, for as the
general asked this he drew from his pocket a crumpled and soiled paper,
which he threw heedlessly upon the table before us.

'Why, this is not his name, sir,' said I; 'this appointment is made out
in the name of Nicholas Downes, and our friend here is called Dowall.'

'Who knows him? who can identify him?' asked Serasin.

'I can say that his name is Dowall, and that he worked as a porter on
the quay in this town when I was a boy,' said a young Irishman who was
copying letters and papers at a side-table. 'Yes, Dowall,' said the
youth, confronting the look which the other gave him. 'I am neither
afraid nor ashamed to tell you to your face that I know you well, and
who you are, and what you are.'

'I'm an officer in the Irish Independent Army now,' said Dowall
resolutely. 'To the divil I fling the French commission and all that
belongs to it. Tisn't troops that run and guns that burst we want.
Let them go back again the way they came--we 're able for the work
ourselves.*

Before I could translate this rude speech an officer broke into the
room, with tidings that the streets had been cleared, and the rioters
dispersed; a few prisoners, too, were taken, whose muskets bore trace of
being