m his post in the dark, while Wally and Percy, gingerly
carrying the squirt, ascended in his place.

"Hand up the basin," said Wally, "and get another lot of water ready."

"I say," said Fisher minor, who was always being seized by heroic
impulses, "if you could let me down out of the window by the rope, I'd
be able to get a candle."

"Good old `How now!' awfully good notion," said Wally. "You chaps see
to that, while my young brother and I work the squirt. Don't tell
anybody what's up, young Fisher, and get back as soon as you can."

So, while the squirt was carefully being levelled in the face of the
enemy, Fisher minor, with the end of the rope round his waist, was
swinging precariously in mid-air out of the window, heartily repenting,
until his feet touched _terra firma_, of his rash and desperate
undertaking.

Before he was safe, the great attack had been delivered through the
loophole. The kickers had receded from the door a pace or two in order
to get up impetus for a combined onslaught, and Clapperton with a poker
in his hand was advancing to annihilate the lock, when Percy, who was
reconnoitring from the ventilating holes, gave the signal to have at
them.

Whereupon Wally let fly with all his might, and converted half of the
enemy, their captain included, into Ethiopians.

The effect was instantaneous. The four-footed kick did not come off.
Clapperton's poker fell with a clatter on the floor, and a howl went up
which electrified both besiegers and besieged.

"Look alive now!" said Wally. "Let 'em have the water! Keep it up!"

For five minutes an almost uninterrupted flow of coloured water poured
through the loophole and kept the enemy at bay. But even a jugful will
not last for ever, and presently the squirt gave a dismal groan on the
bottom of the basin.

Almost at the same moment an ominous crack proclaimed that the good old
door was giving way by degrees under the now renewed attack of the
besiegers.

"They'll have it, after all," said Percy.

"Tell you what! Suppose we slip out by the window, and you chaps come
and have supper in our room. Rather a lark, eh? It's getting a bit
slow here. Nice sell for them too. Besides, they can't get at you over
on our side."

This hospitable invitation fitted in with the humour of the company
generally, particularly as every moment the door gave a more doubtful
sound than before.

In three minutes the whole party was on the grass below, where