continued without pause, a ring was formed round the men thus engaged, by their confederates, who, pointing their pistols at the advancing crowd, warned them, as they valued their lives, to keep off. Gaining courage from their rapidly-swelling numbers, the mob, however, continued to close in round the van, whereupon several shots were discharged by the Fenians, which had the effect of making the Englishmen again fall back in confusion. It is certain that these shots were discharged for no other purpose than that of frightening the crowd; one of them did take effect in the heel of a bystander, but in every other case the shots were fired high over the heads of the crowd. While this had been passing around the van, a more tragic scene was passing inside it. From the moment the report of the first shot reached him, Sergeant Brett seems to have divined the nature and object of the attack. "My God! its these Fenians," he exclaimed. The noise of the blows showered on the roof and sides of the van was increased by the shrieks of the female prisoners, who rushed frantically into the passage, and made the van resound with their wailings. In the midst of the tumult a face appeared at the grating, and Brett heard himself summoned to give up the keys. The assailants had discovered where they were kept, and resolved on obtaining them as the speediest way of effecting their purpose. "Give up the keys, or they will shoot you," exclaimed the women; but Brett refused. The next instant he fell heavily backwards, with the hot blood welling from a bullet-wound in the head. A shot fired into the key-hole, for the purpose of blowing the lock to pieces, had taken effect in his temple. The terror-stricken women lifted him up, screaming "he's killed." As they did so, the voice which had been heard before called out to them through the ventilator to give up the keys. One of the women then took them from the pocket of the dying policeman, and handed them out through the trap. The door was at once unlocked, the terrified women rushed out, and Brett, weltering in blood, rolled out heavily upon the road. Then a pale-faced young man, wearing a light overcoat, a blue tie, and a tall brown hat, who had been noticed taking a prominent part in the affray, entered the van, and unlocked the compartments in which Kelly and Deasey were confined. A hasty greeting passed between them, and then the trio hurriedly joined the band outside. "I told you, Kelly, I would die before I parted with you," cried the young man who had unlocked the doors; then, seizing Kelly by the arm, he helped him across the road, and over the wall, into the brick-fields beyond. Here he was taken charge of by others of the party, who hurried with him across the country, while a similar office was performed for Deasey, who, like Colonel Kelly, found himself hampered to some extent by the handcuffs on his wrists. The main body of those who had shared in the assault occupied themselves with preventing the fugitives from being pursued; and not until Kelly, Deasy, and their conductors had passed far out of sight, did they think of consulting their own safety. At length, when further resistance to the mob seemed useless and impossible, they broke and fled, some of them occasionally checking the pursuit by turning round and presenting pistols at those who followed. Many of the fugitives escaped, but several others were surrounded and overtaken by the mob. And now the "chivalry" of the English nature came out in its real colours. No sooner did the cowardly set, whom the sight of a revolver kept at bay while Kelly was being liberated, find themselves with some of the Irish party in their power, than they set themselves to beat them with savage ferocity. The young fellow who had opened the van door, and who had been overtaken by the mob, was knocked down by a blow of a brick, and then brutally kicked and stoned, the only Englishman who ventured to cry shame being himself assaulted for his display of humanity. Several others were similarly ill-treated; and not until the blood spouted out from the bruised and mangled bodies of the prostrate men, did the valiant Englishmen consider they had sufficiently tortured their helpless prisoners. Meanwhile, large reinforcements appeared on the spot; police and military were despatched in eager haste in pursuit of the fugitives; the telegraph was called into requisition, and a description of the liberated Fenians flashed to the neighbouring towns; the whole detective force of Manchester was placed on their trail, and in the course of a few hours thirty-two Irishmen were in custody, charged with having assisted in the attack on the van. But of Kelly or Deasey no trace was ever discovered; they were seen to enter a cottage not far from the Hyde-road, and leave it with their hands unfettered, but all attempts to trace their movements beyond this utterly failed. While the authorities in Manchester were excitedly discussing the means to be adopted in view of the extraordinary event, Brett lay expiring in the hospital to which he had been conveyed. He never recovered consciousness after receiving the wound, and he died in less than two hours after the fatal shot had been fired.

Darkness had closed in around Manchester before the startling occurrence that had taken place in their midst became known to the majority of its inhabitants. Swiftly the tidings flew throughout the big city, till the whisper in which the rumour was first breathed swelled into a roar of astonishment and rage. Leaving their houses and leaving their work, the people rushed into the streets, and trooped towards the newspaper offices for information. The rescue of Colonel Kelly and death of Sergeant Brett were described in thousands of conflicting narratives, until the facts almost disappeared beneath the mass of inventions and exaggerations, the creations of excitement and panic, with which they were overloaded. Meanwhile, the police, maddened by resentment and agitation, struck out wildly and blindly at the Irish. They might not be able to recapture the escaped Fenian leaders, but they could load the gaols with their countrymen and co-religionists; they might not be able to apprehend the liberators of Colonel Kelly and Captain Deasey, but they could glut their fury on members of the same nationality; and this they did most effectually. The whole night long the raid upon the Irish quarter in Manchester was continued; houses were broken into, and their occupants dragged off to prison, and flung into cells, chained as though they were raging beasts. Mere Irish were set upon in the streets, in the shops, in their homes, and hurried off to prison as if the very existence of the empire depended on their being subjected to every kind of brutal violence and indignity. The yell for vengeance filled the air; the cry for Irish blood arose upon the night-air like a demoniacal chorus; and before morning broke their fury was to some extent appeased by the knowledge that sixty of the proscribed race—sixty of the hated Irish—were lying chained within the prison cells of Manchester.

Fifteen minutes was the time occupied in setting Kelly free—only fifteen minutes—but during that short space of time an act was accomplished which shook the whole British Empire to its foundation. From the conspiracy to which this daring deed was traceable the English people had already received many startling surprises. The liberation of James Stephens and the short-lived insurrection that filled the snow-capped hills with hardy fugitives, six months before, had both occasioned deep excitement in England; but nothing that Fenianism had yet accomplished acted in the same bewildering manner on the English mind. In the heart of one of their largest cities, in the broad daylight, openly and undisguisedly, a band of Irishmen had appeared in arms against the Queen's authority, and set the power