yours?"

"No, sir, I've got something better. Feel this."

"A rope?"

"Yes, sir, and a noose in it, as runs easy."

"To tie him?"

"To lash-show him, sir. We'll go down to the bottom where he's most
likely to come over, and then I'll catch him and hold him, and you shall
let him have it."

The ambush was made--a gooseberry ambush, Tom called it--and for quite
an hour Tom knelt on a sack waiting patiently, but there was not a
sound, and he was beginning to think it a miserably tiresome task, when
all at once, as they crouched there securely hidden, watching the wall,
some eight feet away, it seemed to Tom that he could see a peculiar
rounded black fungus growing out of the top.

It was very indistinct, and the growth was very slow, but it certainly
increased, and the boy stretched out his hand to reach over an
intervening gooseberry-bush so as to touch David, but he touched an
exceedingly sharp thorn instead and winced, but fortunately made no
noise.

Hoping that David had seen what was before him, Tom waited for a few
moments, with the dark excrescence still gradually growing, till he
could contain himself no longer, and reaching this time with his stick,
he gave the gardener a pretty good poke, when the return pressure told
him that this time his companion was well upon the alert.

All at once, when the dark object had grown up plainly into a head and
shoulders, it ceased increasing, and remained perfectly motionless, as
if a careful observation was being made by some one watchful in the
extreme.

"Why don't David throw?" thought Tom, who held himself ready to spring
forward at a moment's notice, "He could not help catching him now."

But David made no signal, and Tom crouched there with his nerves
tingling, waiting in the darkness for the time when he must begin.

At the end of about ten minutes there was a quick rustling sound, the
dark shadow altered its shape, and Tom saw that whoever it was lay
straight along upon the wall perfectly motionless for a few minutes
longer as if listening intently. Then very quickly there was another
motion, a sharp rustling, and the intruder dropped upon the ground.

It was too dark to see what followed, but Tom knew that David had risen
slowly upright, and uttered a grunt as he threw something, evidently the
lasso; for there was a dull sound, then a rush and a scrambling and
crashing, as of some one climbing up the wall, and lastly David
shouted--

"Got him, sir