CHAPTER XXI.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 7, 8 June 1883, Page 7

CHAPTER XXI.

As Maurice with Briney in his charge rode past the place where the famous horseman bad fallen his body was lying there still. The time was so short and the period was so full of excitement and suspended interest that there was no time to give attention to the fallen. Still and rigid he lay, the face, white and fixed, turned to the sky. The bright hopes that had fired his brain, the daydreams that had kindled his heart ever since the day he parted from the blue ranges of Mount Leinster, the ambition to use his high military skill in the service of his native land, were all vanished. He was fated never more to rest his eyes on the purple flowers of the Blackataira nor on the broad wave of the sunlit Barrow ; and his sword was des« tined never to outflash on Irish hill-side for his country's freedom. " Poor fellow 1 poor fellow 1 " was all Maurice could say as lie yet but faintly realised the death of his gallant friend. But the living needed attention more than the dead, for the present and so himself and Briney rode with the unconscious form of the wounded Harold to the military hospital, whither they had him care* fully borne and attended to. He had received some severe bayonet wounds, as his horse fell, killed by a bullet through the head, in the moment of leaping - over the Russians guns, Harold had fallen underneath and been severely crushed. It was only then that Briney, who, unknown to them, had pro* vided himself with uniform as indeed, he mar aged to provide himself and them with everything — had seized a picketed charger, and in the excitement of the moment had joined them, lifted him with great bodily strength from under the crushing weight, and bore him in safety from his dangerous position. (To be continued.)