rcia said?" I then whispered to Lilla.

I knew that my interpretation must have been pretty correct from the
start Lilla gave, and then her shudder.

"I dare not tell you," she said, with a half sob.

Then leaving the window, after softly closing and securing it, we
hurried, hand in hand, to my uncle.

"How long you have been!" he whispered.

"There was a party of six or seven by my window," I said; "Garcia
heading them."

"Then I was right!" he exclaimed anxiously. "I thought--"

The next moment my hand was upon his lips; for, dimly-seen through the
narrow aperture left, from which my uncle watched, were four dark
figures; while at the same moment there was a sharp cracking noise, as
of breaking woodwork, from another part of the house.

"Am I to shoot or ain't I? Is Mas'r Harry there?" whispered a voice
from out of the darkness. "Because they're trying to break in here."

"You must fire, Tom," said my uncle huskily; "and mind this, if they do
break in, our only hope is in the kitchen, which is stone built and
strong. Make your way there."

"Right, Mas'r Landell," said Tom coolly.

Then we heard him glide off.

"Lilla, join your mother in there," I heard my uncle then whisper.

Directly after I knew we were alone.

"Harry," said my uncle, "it seems to me that we ought to have beaten a
retreat; but it is too late to talk of that. Our only hope now is by
giving them a sharp reception. If we can keep them at bay till daylight
we shall have a better opportunity of escaping."

"I don't agree with you," I said. "I think our hopes should be in the
darkness."

Drawing near to the window, my remarks were cut short by the sharp
report of a gun, followed in a few seconds by another, when the crashing
noise, evidently made by the tearing down of the jalousie bars at one
window, suddenly ceased, and a loud shriek rang out upon the night air.

We neither of us spoke, as we listened attentively, to hear the next
moment the sound made by a ramrod in a gun-barrel, and we knew that Tom
was safe.

"They've gone from my window now, Mas'r Landell," whispered a voice at
our elbow; "and they won't come back there, I think, seeing how hot it
was. But, harken there, isn't that them trying somewhere else?"

There was no mistaking the sound. Strong hands were striving to tear
down a jalousie at the other end of the house; and, hurrying there, my
uncle fired, just as several dimly-seen dark figures were beating in