"All right, sir."
"The Governor sends me down with word that he believes the enemy means business to-night. Where's your artilleryman?"
"Sergeant McQuarters, sir? He stepped down, a moment since, to the barrier, to keep the sentry awake."
John à Cleeve glanced up at the lamp smoking under the beam.
"You have too much light here," he said. "If McQuarters has the guns well pointed, you need only one lantern for your lintstocks."
He blew out the candle in his own, and reaching up a hand, lowered the light until it was all but extinct. As he did so his hood fell back and the lamp-rays illumined his upturned face for two or three seconds; a tired face, pinched just now with hard living and wakefulness, but moulded and firmed by discipline. Fifteen years had bitten their lines deeply about the under-jaw and streaked the temples with grey. But they had been years of service; and, whatever he had missed in them, he had found self-reliance.
He stepped out upon the pent of the hangar, and, with another glance up at the night, plunged into the deep snow, and trudged his way down to the barricade.
"Sergeant McQuarters!"
"Here sir!" The Highlander saluted in the darkness, "Any word from up yonder, sir?" A faint glow touched the outline of his face as he lifted it toward the illuminated citadel.
"The Governor looks for an assault to-night. So you know me, McQuarters?"