e
except the rat-hole sentinels started off in single file, led by Cossar,
towards the wasps' nest.

So far as the wasps' nest went, they found their task exceptionally
easy--astonishingly easy. Except that it was a longer labour, it was no
graver affair than any common wasps' nest might have been. Danger there
was, no doubt, danger to life, but it never so much as thrust its head
out of that portentous hillside. They stuffed in the sulphur and nitre,
they bunged the holes soundly, and fired their trains. Then with a
common impulse all the party but Cossar turned and ran athwart the long
shadows of the pines, and, finding Cossar had stayed behind, came to a
halt together in a knot, a hundred yards away, convenient to a ditch
that offered cover. Just for a minute or two the moonlit night, all
black and white, was heavy with a suffocated buzz, that rose and mingled
to a roar, a deep abundant note, and culminated and died, and then
almost incredibly the night was still.

"By Jove!" said Bensington, almost in a whisper, "_it's done!_"

All stood intent. The hillside above the black point-lace of the pine
shadows seemed as bright as day and as colourless as snow. The setting
plaster in the holes positively shone. Cossar's loose framework moved
towards them.

"So far--" said Cossar.

Crack--_bang_!

A shot from near the house and then--stillness.

"What's _that_?" said Bensington.

"One of the rats put its head out," suggested one of the men.

"By-the-bye, we left our guns up there," said Redwood.

"By the sacks."

Every one began to walk towards the hill again.

"That must be the rats," said Bensington.

"Obviously," said Cossar, gnawing his finger nails.

_Bang_!

"Hullo?" said one of the men.

Then abruptly came a shout, two shots, a loud shout that was almost a
scream, three shots in rapid succession and a splintering of wood. All
these sounds were very clear and very small in the immense stillness of
the night. Then for some moments nothing but a minute muffled confusion
from the direction of the rat-holes, and then again a wild yell ... Each
man found himself running hard for the guns.

Two shots.

Bensington found himself, gun in hand, going hard through the pine trees
after a number of receding backs. It is curious that the thought
uppermost in his mind at that moment was the wish that his cousin Jane
could see him. His bulbous slashed boots flew out in wild strides, and
his face was distorted