SIEGE He never believed that they could hold the northeast corner for a minute, so loud and unceasing was the uproar.

Bullets spattered sharply along the wall and sang overhead, mixed now and then with an indescribable whistling and jingling.

The angle was like the prow of a ship cutting forward into a gale.

Yet Rudolph climbed, rejoicing, up the short bamboo ladder, to the platform which his coolies had built in such haste, so long ago, that afternoon.
His high spirits went before a fall.

As he stood up, in the full glow from the burning go-down, somebody tackled him about the knees and threw him head first on the sand-bags.
"How many times must I give me orders ?" barked the little sea-captain.
"Under cover, under cover, and stay under cover, or I'll send ye below, ye gallivanting--Oh! it's you, is it?
Well, there's your port-hole." A stubby finger pointed in the obscurity.