in a fury.

"I should hope we _had_!" he said; "I'd give something for a jolly good
boiling kettle of lead. Surrender, indeed!"

And now came more tramping and a pause, and then the thundering thump of
the battering-ram. And the little room was almost pitch dark.

"We've held it," cried Robert, "we _won't_ surrender! The sun _must_ set
in a minute. Here--they're all jawing underneath again. Pity there's no
time to get more stones! Here, pour that water down on them. It's no
good, of course, but they'll hate it."

"Oh dear!" said Jane, "don't you think we'd better surrender?"

"Never!" said Robert; "we'll have a parley if you like, but we'll never
surrender. Oh, I'll be a soldier when I grow up--you just see if I
don't. I won't go into the Civil Service, whatever anyone says."

"Let's wave a handkerchief and ask for a parley," Jane pleaded. "I don't
believe the sun's going to set to-night at all."

"Give them the water first--the brutes!" said the bloodthirsty Robert.
So Anthea tilted the pot over the nearest lead-hole, and poured. They
heard a splash below, but no one below seemed to have felt it. And again
the ram battered the great door. Anthea paused.

[Illustration: Anthea tilted the pot over the nearest lead-hole]

"How idiotic," said Robert, lying flat on the floor and putting one eye
to the lead-hole. "Of course the holes go straight down into the
gate-house--that's for when the enemy has got past the door and the
portcullis, and almost all is lost. Here, hand me the pot." He crawled
on to the three-cornered window-ledge in the middle of the wall, and,
taking the pot from Anthea, poured the water out through the arrow-slit.

And as he began to pour, the noise of the battering-ram and the
trampling of the foe and the shouts of "Surrender!" and "De Talbot for
ever!" all suddenly stopped and went out like the snuff of a candle; the
little dark room seemed to whirl round and turn topsy-turvy, and when
the children came to themselves there they were, safe and sound, in the
big front bedroom of their own house--the house with the ornamental
nightmare iron-top to the roof.

They all crowded to the window and looked out. The moat and the tents
and the besieging force were all gone--and there was the garden with its
tangle of dahlias and marigolds and asters and later roses, and the
spiky iron railings and the quiet white road.

Everyone drew a deep breath.

"And that's all right!" said Robert. "I told you