  We present a quantum repeater protocol using atomic ensembles, linear optics
and single-photon sources. Two local 'polarization' entangled states of atomic
ensembles $u$ and $d$ are generated by absorbing a single photon emitted by an
on-demand single-photon sources, based on which high-fidelity local
entanglement between four ensembles can be established efficiently through
Bell-state measurement. Entanglement in basic links and entanglement connection
between links are carried out by the use of two-photon interference. In
addition to being robust against phase fluctuations in the quantum channels,
this scheme may speed up quantum communication with higher fidelity by about 2
orders of magnitude for 1280 km compared with the partial read (PR) protocol
(Sangouard {\it et al.}, Phys. Rev. A {\bf77}, 062301 (2008)) which may
generate entanglement most quickly among the previous schemes with the same
ingredients.
