with him most of the time. They would meet at the
embrasure; find together whatever waited for them there. Nat was
sobbing by this time--sweat and tears together running down the caked
blood on his cheek--but he did not know it.

He had almost reached the top when a sudden pressure above forced his
feet off the rung and his body over the ladder's side; and there he
dangled, hooked by his armpit. Someone grabbed his leg, and, pulling
him into place, thrust him up over the shoulders of the tall Royal in
front. He saw the leader on the middle ladder go down under a clubbed
blow which burst through his japanned shako-cover, and then a hand
came down to help him.

"Spuds, O Spuds!"

It was Teddy reaching down from the coping to help him, and he paid
for it with his life. The two wriggled into the embrasure together,
Nat's head and shoulders under Teddy's right arm. Nat did not see the
bayonet thrust given, but heard a low grunt, as he and his friend's
corpse toppled over the coping together and into Badajos.

He rose on his knees, caught a man by the leg, flung him, and as the
fellow clutched his musket, wrenched the bayonet from it and plunged
it into his body. While the Frenchman heaved, he pulled out the weapon
for another stab, dropped sprawling on his enemy's chest, and the
first wave of the storming party broke over him, beating the breath
out of him, and passed on.

Yet he managed to wriggle his body from under this rush of feet, and,
by-and-bye, to raise himself, still grasping the sidearm. Men of the
4th were pouring thick and fast through the embrasure, and turning to
the right in pursuit of the enemy now running along the curve of the
ramparts. A few only pressed straight forward to silence the musketry
jetting and crackling from the upper windows of two houses facing on
the fortifications.

Nat staggered down after them, but turned as soon as he gained the
roadway, and, passing to the right, plunged down a black side street.
An insane notion possessed him of taking the two houses in the rear,
and as he went he shouted to the 4th to follow him. No one paid him
the smallest attention, and presently he was alone in the darkness,
rolling like a drunkard, shaken by his sobs, but still shouting and
brandishing his sidearm. He clattered against a high blank wall.

Still he lurched forward over uneven cobbles. He had forgotten his
design upon the two houses, but a light shone at the end of this dark
lane, and he