I
    'What shall we do?' said Audrey.

　　She looked at me hopefully, as if I were a mine of ideas. Hervoice was level, without a suggestion of fear in it. Women havethe gift of being courageous at times when they might legitimatelygive way. It is part of their unexpectedness.

　　This was certainly such an occasion. Daylight would bring usrelief, for I did not suppose that even Buck MacGinnis would careto conduct a siege which might be interrupted by the arrival oftradesmen's carts; but while the darkness lasted we werecompletely cut off from the world. With the destruction of thetelephone wire our only link with civilization had been snapped.

　　Even had the night been less stormy than it was, there was nochance of the noise of our warfare reaching the ears of anyone whomight come to the rescue. It was as Sam had said, Buck's energyunited to his strategy formed a strong combination.

　　Broadly speaking, there are only two courses open to a beleagueredgarrison. It can stay where it is, or it can make a sortie. Iconsidered the second of these courses.

　　It was possible that Sam and his allies had departed in theautomobile to get reinforcements, leaving the coast temporarilyclear; in which case, by escaping from the house at once, we mightbe able to slip unobserved through the grounds and reach thevillage in safety. To support this theory there was the fact thatthe car, on its late visit, had contained only the chauffeur andthe two ambassadors, while Sam had spoken of the remainder ofBuck's gang as being in readiness to attack in the event of my notcoming to terms. That might mean that they were waiting at Buck'sheadquarters, wherever those might be--at one of the cottages downthe road, I imagined; and, in the interval before the attackbegan, it might be possible for us to make our sortie withsuccess.

　　'Is Ogden in bed?' I asked.

　　'Yes.'

　　'Will you go and get him up as quickly as you can?'

　　I strained my eyes at the window, but it was impossible to seeanything. The rain was still falling heavily. If the drive hadbeen full of men they would have been invisible to me.

　　Presently Audrey returned, followed by Ogden. The Little Nuggetwas yawning the aggrieved yawns of one roused from his beautysleep.

　　'What's all this?' he demanded.

　　'Listen,' I said. 'Buck MacGinnis and Smooth Sam Fisher have comeafter you. They are outside now. Don't be frightened.'

　　He snorted derisively.

　　'Who's frightened? I guess they won't hurt _me_. How do you knowit's them?'

　　'They have just been here. The man who called himself White, thebutler, was really Sam Fisher. He has been waiting an opportunityto get you all the term.'

　　'White! Was he Sam Fisher?' He chuckled admiringly. 'Say, he's awonder!'

　　'They have gone to fetch the rest of the gang.'

　　'Why don't you call the cops?'

　　'They have cut the wire.'

　　His only emotions at the news seemed to be amusement and a renewedadmiration for Smooth Sam. He smiled broadly, the little brute.

　　'He's a wonder!' he repeated. 'I guess he's smooth, all right.

　　He's the limit! He'll get me all right this trip. I bet you anickel he wins out.'

　　I found his attitude trying. That he, the cause of all the trouble,should be so obviously regarding it as a sporting contest got upfor his entertainment, was hard to bear. And the fact that, whatevermight happen to myself, he was in no danger, comforted me not at all.

　　If I could have felt that we were in any way companions in peril,I might have looked on the bulbous boy with quite a friendly eye.

　　As it was, I nearly kicked him.

　　'We had better waste no time,' suggested Audrey, 'if we are going.'

　　'I think we ought to try it,' I said.

　　'What's that?' asked the Nugget. 'Go where?'

　　'We are going to steal out through the back way and try to slipthrough to the village.'

　　The Nugget's comment on the scheme was brief and to the point. Hedid not embarrass me with fulsome praise of my strategic genius.

　　'Of all the fool games!' he said simply. 'In this rain? No, sir!'

　　This new complication was too much for me. In planning out mymanoeuvres I had taken his cooperation for granted. I had lookedon him as so much baggage--the impedimenta of the retreating army.

　　And, behold, a mutineer!

　　I took him by the scruff of the neck and shook him. It was arelief to my feelings and a sound move. The argument was one whichhe understood.

　　'Oh, all right,' he said. 'Anything you like. Come on. But it soundsto me like darned foolishness!'

　　If nothing else had happened to spoil the success of that sortie,the Nugget's depressing attitude would have done so. Of all things,it seems to me, a forlorn hope should be undertaken with a certainenthusiasm and optimism if it is to have a chance of being successful.

　　Ogden threw a gloom over the proceedings from the start. He was crossand sleepy, and he condemned the expedition unequivocally. As we movedtowards the back door he kept up a running stream of abusive comment.

　　I silenced him before cautiously unbolting the door, but he had saidenough to damp my spirits. I do not know what effect it would havehad on Napoleon's tactics if his army--say, before Austerlitz--hadspoken of his manoeuvres as a 'fool game' and of himself as a 'bigchump', but I doubt if it would have stimulated him.

　　The back door of Sanstead House opened on to a narrow yard, pavedwith flagstones and shut in on all sides but one by walls. To theleft was the outhouse where the coal was stored, a squat barnlikebuilding: to the right a wall that appeared to have been erectedby the architect in an outburst of pure whimsicality. It juststood there. It served no purpose that I had ever been able todiscover, except to act as a cats' club-house.

　　Tonight, however, I was thankful for this wall. It formed animportant piece of cover. By keeping in its shelter it waspossible to work round the angle of the coal-shed, enter thestable-yard, and, by making a detour across the football field,avoid the drive altogether. And it was the drive, in my opinion,that might be looked on as the danger zone.

　　The Nugget's complaints, which I had momentarily succeeded inchecking, burst out afresh as the rain swept in at the open doorand lashed our faces. Certainly it was not an ideal night for aramble. The wind was blowing through the opening at the end of theyard with a compressed violence due to the confined space. Therewas a suggestion in our position of the Cave of the Winds underNiagara Falls, the verisimilitude of which was increased by thestream of water that poured down from the gutter above our heads.

　　The Nugget found it unpleasant, and said so shrilly.

　　I pushed him out into the storm, still protesting, and we began tocreep across the yard. Half-way to the first point of importanceof our journey, the corner of the coal-shed, I halted theexpedition. There was a sudden lull in the wind, and I tookadvantage of it to listen.

　　From somewhere beyond the wall, apparently near the house, soundedthe muffled note of the automobile. The siege-party had returned.

　　There was no time to be lost. Apparently the possibility of asortie had not yet occurred to Sam, or he would hardly have leftthe back door unguarded; but a general of his astuteness wascertain to remedy the mistake soon, and our freedom of actionmight be a thing of moments. It behoved us to reach the stable-yardas quickly as possible. Once there, we should be practically throughthe enemy's lines.

　　Administering a kick to the Nugget, who showed a disposition tolinger and talk about the weather, I moved on, and we reached thecorner of the coal-shed in safety.

　　We had now arrived at the really perilous stage in our journey.

　　Having built his wall to a point level with the end of the coal-shed,the architect had apparently wearied of the thing and given it up;for it ceased abruptly, leaving us with a matter of half a dozenyards of open ground to cross, with nothing to screen us from thewatchers on the drive. The flagstones, moreover, stopped at thispoint. On the open space was loose gravel. Even if the darknessallowed us to make the crossing unseen, there was the risk that wemight be heard.

　　It was a moment for a flash of inspiration, and I was waiting forone, when that happened which took the problem out of my hands.

　　From the interior of the shed on our left there came a suddenscrabbling of feet over loose coal, and through the square openingin the wall, designed for the peaceful purpose of taking in sacks,climbed two men. A pistol cracked. From the drive came ananswering shout. We had been ambushed.

　　I had misjudged Sam. He had not overlooked the possibility of asortie.

　　It is the accidents of life that turn the scale in a crisis. Theopening through which the men had leaped was scarcely a couple ofyards behind the spot where we were standing. If they had leapedfairly and kept their feet, they would have been on us before wecould have moved. But Fortune ordered it that, zeal outrunningdiscretion, the first of the two should catch his foot in thewoodwork and fall on all fours, while the second, unable to checkhis spring, alighted on top of him, and, judging from the stifledyell which followed, must have kicked him in the face.

　　In the moment of their downfall I was able to form a plan andexecute it.

　　'The stables!'

　　I shouted the words to Audrey in the act of snatching up theNugget and starting to run. She understood. She did not hesitatein the direction of the house for even the instant which mighthave undone us, but was with me at once; and we were across theopen space and in the stable-yard before the first of the men inthe drive loomed up through the darkness. Half of the woodendouble-gate of the yard was open, and the other half served us asa shield. They fired as they ran--at random, I think, for it wastoo dark for them to have seen us clearly--and two bullets slappedagainst the gate. A third struck the wall above our heads andricocheted off into the night. But before they could fire again wewere in the stables, the door slammed behind us, and I had dumpedthe Nugget on the floor, and was shooting the heavy bolts intotheir places. Footsteps clattered over the flagstones and stoppedoutside. Some weighty body plunged against the door. Then therewas silence. The first round was over.

　　The stables, as is the case in most English country-houses, hadbeen, in its palmy days, the glory of Sanstead House. In whateverother respect the British architect of that period may have fallenshort, he never scamped his work on the stables. He built themstrong and solid, with walls fitted to repel the assaults of theweather, and possibly those of men as well, for the Boones intheir day had been mighty owners of race-horses at a time when menwith money at stake did not stick at trifles, and it was prudentto see to it that the spot where the favourite was housed hadsomething of the nature of a fortress. The walls were thick, thedoor solid, the windows barred with iron. We could scarcely havefound a better haven of refuge.

　　Under Mr Abney's rule, the stables had lost their originalcharacter. They had been divided into three compartments, eachseparated by a stout wall. One compartment became a gymnasium,another the carpenter's shop, the third, in which we were,remained a stable, though in these degenerate days no horse everset foot inside it, its only use being to provide a place for theodd-job man to clean shoes. The mangers which had once held fodderwere given over now to brushes and pots of polish. In term-time,bicycles were stored in the loose-box which had once echoed to thetramping of Derby favourites.

　　I groped about among the pots and brushes, and found a candle-end,which I lit. I was running a risk, but it was necessary to inspectour ground. I had never troubled really to examine this stablebefore, and I wished to put myself in touch with its geography.

　　I blew out the candle, well content with what I had seen. The onlytwo windows were small, high up, and excellently barred. Even ifthe enemy fired through them there were half a dozen spots wherewe should be perfectly safe. Best of all, in the event of the doorbeing carried by assault, we had a second line of defence in aloft. A ladder against the back wall led to it, by way of a trap-door.

　　Circumstances had certainly been kind to us in driving us to thisapparently impregnable shelter.

　　On concluding my inspection, I became aware that the Nugget wasstill occupied with his grievances. I think the shots must havestimulated his nerve centres, for he had abandoned the languiddrawl with which, in happier moments, he was wont to comment onlife's happenings, and was dealing with the situation with astaccato briskness.

　　'Of all the darned fool lay-outs I ever struck, this is the limit.

　　What do those idiots think they're doing, shooting us up that way?

　　It went within an inch of my head. It might have killed me. Gee,and I'm all wet. I'm catching cold. It's all through your blamedfoolishness, bringing us out here. Why couldn't we stay in thehouse?'

　　'We could not have kept them out of the house for five minutes,' Iexplained. 'We can hold this place.'

　　'Who wants to hold it? I don't. What does it matter if they do getme? _I_ don't care. I've a good mind to walk straight out throughthat door and let them rope me in. It would serve Dad right. Itwould teach him not to send me away from home to any darned schoolagain. What did he want to do it for? I was all right where I was.

　　I--'

　　A loud hammering on the door cut off his eloquence. Theintermission was over, and the second round had begun.

　　It was pitch dark in the stable now that I had blown out thecandle, and there is something about a combination of noise anddarkness which tries the nerves. If mine had remained steady, Ishould have ignored the hammering. From the sound, it appeared tobe made by some wooden instrument--a mallet from the carpenter'sshop I discovered later--and the door could be relied on to holdits own without my intervention. For a novice to violence,however, to maintain a state of calm inaction is the mostdifficult feat of all. I was irritated and worried by the noise,and exaggerated its importance. It seemed to me that it must bestopped at once.

　　A moment before, I had bruised my shins against an empty packing-case,which had found its way with other lumber into the stable. I gropedfor this, swung it noiselessly into position beneath the window,and, standing on it, looked out. I found the catch of the window,and opened it. There was nothing to be seen, but the sound of thehammering became more distinct; and pushing an arm through the bars,I emptied my pistol at a venture.

　　As a practical move, the action had flaws. The shots cannot havegone anywhere near their vague target. But as a demonstration, itwas a wonderful success. The yard became suddenly full of dancingbullets. They struck the fl............