sentries, and stood waiting for the
attack.

So silent and unchanged was everything when I played the part of guide,
and led my father and the General to where we had been watching, that my
heart sank, and I felt guilty of raising a false alarm. Then I half
shrank away as I heard the General question the sentry, and he replied
that he had neither seen nor heard anything. Just then my father turned
to me.

"Where's the boy?"

"Here, Pomp," I whispered; but I looked round in vain, and after a few
minutes' search I was fain to confess that he had gone.

"It is some trick," whispered my father, with suppressed anger. "I
cannot hear a sound."

"No; I feel sure he was in earnest. He certainly believed he saw the
Indians."

My father turned to the General, and they conversed together in a low
voice for some minutes, during which I stood there feeling as if I were
wrong, and forgetting that even if I were it was only a case of being
over anxious in our cause.

"No, no," I heard the General say quietly; "don't blame the boys. Of
course it is vexatious, and seems like harassing the men for nothing;
but it has its good side, for it proves how quickly we can man our
defences. Well, what do you say--shall we go back to our beds? There
seems to be no danger. Ah, here is Preston. Well, have you been all
round?"

"Right round, sir, and there does not seem to be anything moving. A
false alarm, I think."

"Yes," said the General, "a false alarm, and--What is it?"

My father had caught his arm in a strong grip, and pointed over the
palisade.

"I don't know what it is," he whispered; "but something is moving out
yonder, a hundred yards away."

Amidst a dead silence every eye was fixed in the direction pointed to by
my father; but no one else could make anything out, and the General
said--

"No; I cannot see it."

"Are you sure?" whispered my father. "George, are you there?"

I replied in a whisper too, and crept to his side.

"Look. Can you make out anything?" he said.

I looked long and intently, and was obliged to answer--

"No."

"Quick! Try and find that boy," said my father, angrily now. "He ought
to have been here."

_Bang_! _bang_! Then report after report, followed by a volley quite
from the other side of the enclosure; and, horrible as it seemed,
followed as it was by a burst of yells, I felt my heart leap with
satisfaction.

There was a rush being made for the spot whence the firing