the veil of the night cloaked from us the work we had done. If
men cried in agony, if groans mocked angry boasts, if we heard the
splashing of the oars, the hoarse command, the vile blasphemy, the rest
was in imagination's keeping. The outposts of Czerny's crew, we said,
had tried to rush the gate where our own men watched; but our own were
behind the steel doors now and the gun's hail swept the barren rock.
The dawn would show us the harvest we had reaped.

Now, the volleys rolled their thunder right away to the hills of Ken's
Island, and the whistling of the bullets was like the singing of unseen
birds above our heads; there were oases of red flame in the waste of
blackness; we heard oaths and cries, commands roared hoarsely across
the water, voices triumphant and voices that were stilled; and then
came the first great silence. Whatever had befallen on the rock, those
who sought to force the lesser gate were, for the moment, driven back.
Even little Dolly, mad at the gun like one whom no reason could
restrain, heard me at last and obeyed my command.

"Cease firing, lad!" roared I, "cease firing! Would you shoot the sea?
Yonder's the captain's whistle. It means that the danger's nearer. Aye,
stand by, lads," I said, "and look out for it."

We swung the gun round so that it faced the basin before us, and,
rifles ready, we peered again in the lowering darkness. About me now I
could hear the deep breathing of my comrades and see their crouching
figures and say that every nerve was tautened, every faculty awakened.
Shielded by the night, those hidden boats were creeping up to us foot
by foot. Whatever had been done at the lesser gate had been done as a
ruse, I did not doubt. Czerny's goal was the greater door we held so
desperately, his desire the full possession, the mastery of the house
wherein lay life and treasure and lasting security.

I counted twenty, no man speaking, and then I raised my voice. Dimly,
in the shadows, I made out the shape of a longboat drifting to the
brink; and to Dolly I said:

"Let go--in God's name, let go, lad!"

He stood to the gun with a cry of defiance and blazed into the
darkness. The drifting boat lurched and sagged and turned her beam to
the seas. I could distinguish the faces of men, ferocious and
threatening, as they peered upward to the rock; I saw other boats
looming over the dark water; I heard the ringing command, "In at them!
To hell with them!" and then, I think, for many m