Still the swords flashed in the air. Then suddenly the
Irishman's weapon snapped at the hilt, and the gallant fellow dropped
at the same moment to the ground. Instantly George set his foot on the
prostrate man's chest, and cried, "Now your life is at my mercy! What
say you?"
"If I must die, I must," the Irishman answered doggedly, "but," he
added quickly, a sudden thought striking him, "take this first, and
see it put into the hands of the person mentioned on it, sir." The
trooper pulled from his breast a piece of paper soiled and crumpled,
and George, wondering much, took it at the man's hands. His foot still
on his fallen foe, Fairburn unfolded the dirty and tattered paper. It
was the cover of a letter, and he read with staring eyes the address
on it, "To Captain M. Blackett,--Dragoons." The handwriting he well
knew; it was that of Mary Blackett.
"Great Heaven!" the reader cried, "where did you get this?"
"It was given me by a poor fellow, an officer, who escaped from the
big explosion at Tournai. He blundered by mistake into our lines, and
our fellows were about to finish him--leastways one chap was, but I
landed him one between his two eyes, and that stopped his game."
"And you saved the Englishman's life?"
"I did, sir; I thought it hard luck when the young fellow had just
escaped that terrific blow up as he had, to put an end to him the
minute after.
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