Ryder vaulted to the back of the horse, and, with the assistance of Levi Long, for it was the American who had intervened, soon had Jim in the saddle.  A few blows from Long’s pike started the nag, and Ryder rushed him blindly at the slabs of the stockade, and the powerful animal blundered through.  A shot from an infantryman, intended for the riders, struck the charger, and he plunged forward, snorting with pain, and bolted madly across the broken ground of Eureka, and Ryder, clinging to the unconscious man with one arm, made no attempt to check or regulate their dangerous flight.

XIX

It was now almost day; the fighting was over.  A smart shower had fallen during the struggle, and the wet pipeclay within the stockade was strewn with dead and wounded diggers, and along the line of attack taken by the three companies of infantry wounded and dead soldiers lay scattered, their red coats dotting the white ground with curious blotches of colour, the figures of the men still vague and indefinite in the mist and the feeble light of the dawning day.  A wounded soldier near the logs writhed in his agony, with worm-like movements terrible to see.  Confusion remained within the stockade.  The killing was ended, but the prisoners were to be collected and guarded.  Many of the insurgents had escaped, some by hiding in the claims, others by making a run for the surrounding diggings.  A few brave friends who had hidden Peter Lalor under slabs sloped against a log succeeded in carrying the wounded leader away under the noses of the soldiers, and he escaped.

The fight had not lasted half an hour, and by the time the people of Ballarat fully realized what was happening it was too late to give help to the devoted few within the stockade; and the men gathered as near the miniature battlefield as they were permitted to go, with white faces, awed and penitent, many feeling the keenest pangs of remorse, knowing how bitterly the earnest souls had paid for their neglect.

One woman had made her way into the stockade within a few minutes of the firing of the last shot.  She passed unnoticed in the confusion; her face was hidden in a shawl, and she went quickly amongst the fallen rebels.  Some of the wounded men lay in puddles—­these she helped; but it was evident that she was seeking someone she knew as she passed from one to another, peering into their faces, seeking to identify them in the feeble light.

This was Aurora Griffiths, and she was seeking Jim Done, cherishing an agonized hope that she might not find him.  One wounded man dragged himself to a puddle to satisfy his craving for drink, and died with his face in the thick water; another, a mere boy, was sitting with his back to a log, staring with a puzzled expression at the gory fingers he had dipped in his wound.  Presently, coming to a man lying face downward where the soldiers had broken through, Aurora uttered a sharp cry.  The figure was familiar.  Quickly she turned the face to, the light.  It was pale and bloodless; the only disfigurement was a small purple wound in a slight depression near the temple, but the man was dead.