soul, Tam, what are you at?"

The man next him lurched suddenly forward, clutching at the sergeant.
In another instant there was a dull thud, and Donald Ward stood over
the sergeant with a pistol, grasped by its barrel, in his hand. He had
brought the butt of it down on the man's skull. Two more of the yeomen
fell almost at the same instant. The rest, three of them with wounds,
fled, yelling, down the lane.

"The croppies are on us! Hell and murder! We're dead men!"

There were about twenty of them, all well armed, but a night surprise
has a tendency to shake the firmest nerves. Captain Twinely and his
fellow-officer played no very heroic part. At the first sound of the
shouting and the footsteps of the flying troopers they rushed into the
inner room and crawled under the bed, fighting desperately with each
other for the place nearest the wall, but Donald Ward had no time to go
after them.

"Cut the boy down," he said.

It was Felix Matier who set Neal free.

"Oh, whistle and I will come to you, my lad," he quoted, as he hustled
the shirt over Neal's shoulders. "Why didn't you whistle, Neal, or
shout, or something? Only for that devil's song we'd never have found
you. I guessed he was at some mischief when I heard him begin it."

"Silence," said Donald, "and let us get out of this. The place must
be swarming with troops, and those yelling cowards will arouse every
soldier within a mite of us. It may not be so easy to chase the next
lot. Over into the churchyard again, and then, Moylin, we must trust to
you. You know the country, or you ought to, and I don't."

Aeneas Moylin led the way into the churchyard again, and across the wall
at the lower end of it. The noise of many horsemen riding fast reached
them from the lane they had left. The frightened yeomen had gathered
troops to aid them, dragoons who had been posted on the main road down
below. From the top of the rath, which rose dark above even the tower of
the church, there came shouts. Men had been placed there, too, and were
gathering to their comrades opposite Moylin's house. The hunt would
begin in earnest soon. Donald called a halt and, cowering under
the shadow of a thick hedge, the little party of fugitives held a
consultation.

"We might go back to the vault," said James Bigger. "They would find it
hard to get at us there, even if they discovered us. They couldn't burn
us out, for the walls are solid stone and four foot thick at least."

"I'm no