Page:The Irish in Australia.djvu/87

 known as the Eureka and principally inhabited by Irish diggers, that the fortified camp of the "rebels," as they were now officially described, was erected. It consisted of an entrenched stockade, that was capable of being made a place of great strength if the diggers had had time to utilise its natural advantages, and place it in a proper state of defence. It occupied an area of about an acre, rudely enclosed with strong slabs. Within the stockade drilling now became the main business of the hour; the diggers' council of war sat almost continuously; blacksmiths were kept at work night and day forging pikes. "Let those who cannot provide themselves with firearms procure a piece of steel five or six inches long, attached to a pole, and that will pierce the tyrants' hearts," were the words of the commander-in-chief to his men. Patrick Curtain was the chosen captain of the pikemen, and Michael Hanrahan was their lieutenant. Meanwhile the authorities were grievously alarmed at the spectre their stupidity, barbarity, and truculent insolence had created. They had never reckoned on the persecuted diggers turning at bay and presenting an unbroken military front to their oppressors. Sir Charles Hotham and his ministers were in an agitated state of perplexity; Melbourne, the capital, was in a panic, and the mayor was swearing in citizens by the hundred as special constables to resist the victorious diggers, whom the wild rumours of the hour described as marching in a body from