"_What_'s he saying?"

"I got it m-mixed up, sir, here in the d-dead darkness with my quid o' baccy--and I th-think I'm goin' to be sick."

"'Tis the very right hand o' Providence, then, that I brought a spare one," spoke up Pengelly. "Here, Un' Issy--_you_ take hold--"

"Everything must follow in order, mind," Captain Pond commanded.

"As soon as the first boat takes ground, you challenge: then count five, and up goes the rocket. Eh?" The Captain swung round at the sound of another footstep on the shingle. "Is that you, Clogg?

Man, but you made me jump!"

"Captain Pond! Oh, Captain Pond!" stammered the new-comer, who was indeed no other than Mr. Clogg, senior lieutenant of the Diehards.

"Why have you left your post, sir? Don't stand there clinky-clanking your sword on the pebbles--catch it up under your arm, sir: you're making noise enough to scare the dead! Now, then, what have you to report? Nothing wrong with the main body, I hope?"

"A man might call it ghosts"--Mr. Clogg in the darkness pa.s.sed a sleeve across his clammy brow--"A man might call it ghosts, Captain Pond, and another might set it down to drink. But you know my habits."

"Be quick, man! You've seen something? What is it?"

"Ah, what indeed? You may well ask it, sir: though not if you was to put the Book into my hands at this moment and ask me to kiss it--"

"Clogg," interrupted the Captain, stepping close and gripping him by the upper arm, "will you swear to me you have not been drinking?"

"Yes and no, Captain. That is, it began with my stepping up the valley to the farm for a dollop of hot water--I'd a thimbleful of schnapps in my flask here--and the night turning chilly, and me remembering that Mrs. Nankivel up to the farm was keeping the kettle on the boil, because she promised as much only last night, knowing my stomach to be susceptible. Well, sir, not meaning to be away more'n a moment--as I was going up the meadow, but keeping along the withy-bed, you understand?--and if I hadn't taken that road, more by instinct than anything else--"

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, if you've anything important to say, say it!

In another five minutes the boats will be here!"

"I don't know what you'd call 'important,'" answered the Lieutenant, in an aggrieved tone. "As I was telling, I got to where the withy-bed ends at the foot of the orchard below the house.

The orchard, as you know, runs down on one side of the stream, and 'tother side there's the gra.s.s meadow they call Little Parc. Just at that moment, if you'll believe me, I heard a man sneeze, and 'pon top of that a noise like a horse's bit shaken--a sort of jingly sound, not ten paces off, t'other side of the withies. 'Tis a curious habit of mine--and you may or may not have noticed it--but I never can hear another person sneeze without wanting to sneeze too. Hows'ever, there's a way of stopping it by putting your thumb on your top lip and pressing hard, and that's what I did, and managed to make very little noise; so that it surprised me when somebody said, 'Be quiet, you fool there!' But he must have meant it for the other man.

Well, ducking down behind the withies and peeking athurt the darkness, by degrees I made out a picter that raised the very hairs on the back of my neck. Yonder, on the turf under the knap of Little Parc, what do I see but a troop of hors.e.m.e.n drawn up, all ghostly to behold! And yet not ghostly neither; for now and then, plain to these fleshly ears, one o' the horses would paw the ground or another jingle his curb-chain on the bit. I tell you, Captain, I crope away from that sight a good fifty yards 'pon my belly before making a break for the Cove; and when I got back close to the mainguard I ducked my head and skirted round to the track here in search of you: for I wouldn' be one to raise false alarms, not I! But, if you ask my private opinion, 'tis either Old Boney hisself or the Devil, and we'm lost to a man."

"Good Lord!" muttered Captain Pond, half to himself. "Hors.e.m.e.n, you say?"

"Hors.e.m.e.n, Captain--great hors.e.m.e.n as tall as statues. But statues, as I told myself, at this time o' night! 'Tis out of the question, an' we may put it aside once for all."

"Hors.e.m.e.n?" repeated Captain Pond. "There's only one explanation, and Hymen must be warned. But I _do_ think he might have trusted me!"

He turned for a swift glance seaward, and at the same instant one or two voices on the ridge above called alarm. Under the western cliff his eye detected a line of dark shadows stealing towards the sh.o.r.e.

"_Until gaining the entrance of the Cove_"--so ran the Major's order--"_the boats will preserve single file. At Downend Point the leading boat will halt and lie on her oars, dose insh.o.r.e, while each successor pivots and spreads in echelon to starboard, keeping, as nearly as may be, two fathoms' distance from her consort to port; all gradually, as the sh.o.r.e is approached, rounding up for a simultaneous attack in line. The crews, on leaping ash.o.r.e, will spread and find touch with one another in two lines, to sweep the beach. A bugle-call will announce the arrival of each boat_."

The Major, erect in the bows of the leading boat, glanced over his right shoulder and beheld his line of followers, all in perfect order, extend themselves and close the mouth of the Cove. Ahead of him--ahead but a few yards only--he heard the slack tide run faintly on the shingle. From the dark beach came no sound. Overhead quivered the expectant stars. He lifted his sword-arm, and from point to hilt ran a swift steely glitter.

"Give way, lads! And Saint Fimbar for Troy!"

A stroke of the oars, defiant now, m.u.f.fled no longer! Two--three strokes, and with a jolt the boat's nose took the beach. The shock flung the Major forward over the bows; and on all fours, with a splash--like Julius Caesar--he saluted the soil he came to conquer.

But in an instant he stood erect again, waving his blade.

"Forward! Forward, Troy!"

"I beg your pardon, Hymen," interrupted Captain Pond, quietly but seriously, stepping forth from the darkness. "Yes, yes; that's understood--but see here now--"

"Back, or you are my prisoner!" The Major had scrambled to his feet, and stood waving his sword.

"Hymen!" Captain Pond ran past the Major's guard and caught him by the elbow.

"Hands off, I say! Forward, Troy!" The Major struggled to disengage his sword-arm.

"Hymen, don't be a fool! As a friend now--though you _might_ have taken me into your confidence--"

"Unhand me, Pond! Though you are doing your best to spoil the whole business--"

"Listen to me, I say. The Dragoons--"

But Captain Pond shouted in vain. Bugle after bugle drowned his voice, rending the darkness. From the rocks to the eastward voices answered them, challenging wildly.

"Death to the invader!"

With a _whoo-sh_ a rocket leapt into the air and burst, flooding the beach with light, showing up every furze bush, every stone wall, every sheep-track, on the surrounding cliffs. As if they had caught fire from it, a score of torches broke into flame on the eastward rocks, and in the sudden blaze, under the detonating fire of musketry, the men of Troy could be seen tumbling out of their boats and splashing ankle-deep to the sh.o.r.e.

It was a splendid, a gallant sight. Each man, as he reached _terra firma_, dropped on one knee, fired deliberately, reloaded, and advanced a dozen paces. Still from the boats behind fresh reinforcements splashed ash.o.r.e and crowded into the firing-line: while from the eastward rock the vanguard of the Diehards kept up its deadly flanking fire, heedless of the torches that exposed them each and all at plain target-shot to the oncoming host.

Still, amid the pealing notes of the bugles, the Major waved his men forward. Captain Pond, breaking loose from him and facing swiftly towards the Cove-head, with a flourish of his blade called upon his mainguard.

Under the volley that thereupon swept the beach, the invaders did indeed waver for a moment--so closely it resembled the real thing.

As the smoke lifted, however, by the murky glare of the torches they were seen to be less demoralised than infuriated. And now, upon the volley's echo, a drum banged thrice, and from a boat just beyond the water's edge the Troy bandsmen crashed out with:

"The Rout it is out for the Looes, For the Looes; Oh, the Rout it is out for the Looes!"

"Forward! Forward, Troy!"

"Steady, the Two Looes! Steady, the Diehards!"

"Form up--form up, there, to the left! Hurray, boys! give 'em the bagginet!"

"Death to Invader! Reload, men! Oh, for your lives, reload! Make ready, all! Prepare! Fire!"

"Mr. Spettigew! Mr. Spettigew!"

"Eh?" Uncle Issy turned as William Oke plucked him by the sleeve.

"What's the matter now? Reload, I tell'ee!"

"I--I can't, Mr. Spettigew. I've a-fired off my ramrod!"

"Then you'm a lost man."

"Will it--will it have killed any person, d'ee think?" Oke's teeth rattled like a box of dice as he peered out over the dark and agitated crowd of boats.