s, boxes and packages we threw down till the
whole space was choke full, and then I danced on the top and defied the
lantern-man and Dick to get through in a week.

"_Now_ go and tell your Irma!" said Agnes Anne, and I went, while she
stopped behind with the lantern and a gun to watch if anything should be
attempted against the cellar.

But I knew right well that no such thing was possible. Nothing short of
such a charge of gunpowder as would rive the whole house of Marnhoul
asunder would suffice to clear the staircase of the packing I had given
it. So Agnes Anne might just as well have come her ways up-stairs with
me. Still, I do not deny that it was thoughtful of her; Agnes Anne meant
well.

Irma had heard the firing, and I found her with her little brother in
her arms, sitting by the window of the parlour overlooking the pilasters
of the front door. She held little Louis wrapped in a blanket, and kept
both herself and him out of sight as much as possible behind the
curtain. But she had the horse pistol I had given her on the ledge of
the sill close at her hand.

She listened to my tale with a white intensity which was very pitiful.
Her eyes seemed so big that they almost overran her face, and there were
little sparks of light like fairy candles lit at the bottom of each.

"Lalor Maitland--it was no other man!" she said in an awed voice. "And
now he is wounded he will be furious. He has many men always in his
power. For he can make or mar a man in the Low Countries, and even bad
men will do much for his favour. He will gather to him all who are
waiting. They will be here immediately and burst in the doors. Oh, what
shall we do? My poor, poor Louis!"

"There is the woman whom Agnes Anne saw," I said. "Can you guess what
she has to do with it? They said they would try her if they did not
succeed."

"Why not light the beacon now?" said a voice from the door. It was Agnes
Anne, who, being left to herself, the thought had come to her in the
dark of the cellar, and had run up to propose it. For me, I was too much
occupied with Irma, and I am sure that Irma was far too troubled
concerning her brother to think about the beacon. Yet it was the obvious
thing to do, and if I had had a moment to spare I would have thought of
it myself. So Agnes Anne had no great credit, after all, when you come
to look at it rightly.

But the effect of the suggestion on Irma was very remarkable. It was as
if the voice of my sister actua