wer
and stood looking up thoughtfully. I joined her, and we could make out
what seemed to be a platform above, and we distinctly saw a light on it,
as though the lookout had struck a match. I suggested firing up at him,
but Tish sniffed.

"And bring in the entire regiment, or whatever it is!" she said
scornfully but in a whisper. "Use your brains, Lizzie!"

However, at that moment the sentry solved the question himself, for he
started down. We could hear his coming. We concealed ourselves hastily,
and Tish watched him go out and into a cellar across the street, where
she said she was convinced they were serving beer. Indeed, there could
be no doubt of it, she maintained, as the men went there in crowds, and
many of them carried tin cups.

Tish's first thought was that he would be immediately relieved by
another lookout, and she stationed herself inside the door, ready to
make him prisoner. But finally the truth dawned on us that he had
temporarily deserted his post. Tish took immediate advantage of his
absence to prepare to ascend the tower, and having found a large knife
in the knapsack she had salvaged she took it between her teeth and
climbed the narrow winding staircase.

"If he comes back before I return, Lizzie," she said, "capture him, but
don't shoot. It might make the rest suspicious."

She then disappeared and I heard her climbing the stairs with her usual
agility. However, she returned considerably sooner than I had
anticipated, and in a state of intense anger.

"There is another one up there," she whispered. "I heard him sneezing.
Why he didn't shoot at me I don't know, unless he thought I was the
other one. But I've fixed him," she added with a tinge of complacency.
"It's a rope ladder at the top. I reached up as high as I could and cut
it."

She then grew thoughtful and observed that cutting the ladder
necessitated changing a part of her plan.

"What plan?" I demanded. "I guess my life's at stake as well as yours,
Tish Carberry."

"I should think it would be perfectly clear," she said. "We've either
got to take this town or starve like rats in that cellar. They've got so
now that they won't even walk on the side next to the church, and some
of them cross themselves. The frying pan seems to have started it, and
when the knapsack disappeared---- However, here's my plan, Lizzie. From
what I have observed during the day pretty nearly the entire lot, except
the sentries, will be in that beer cellar