“Yes, sir.”
“Come here. The sentry thinks there are people below there. Come and have a look.”
“The sentry I’ve just relieved thought the same, sir,” replied Gee sharply, “and I had a good look. They’re sheep driven down from the hills by the bad weather. I was going to report to the Colonel, sir, and ask whether he’d order a sally from the gate to drive them in. Be useful, sir.”
“To be sure. You’d better do it. Let’s have a look over first.”
They stepped together to the embattled wall, and peered down into the darkness; but nothing was visible now, and Roberts was about to give the matter up as all a mistake, when, from where the mist was most dense, there was the pattering of hoofs in the wet mud, followed by the peculiarly human cough of one of the sheep of the district.
“No mistake about what they are, sir,” said Sergeant Gee softly. “They’ve come down to the low grounds on account of the storm.”
“Yes,” said Roberts, “and because there are none of the Dwats to keep them back. Why, Gee, we’re in luck. We must have the men out and the flock driven in.”
“Not much room for them in the court, sir,” said the Sergeant.
“No; but to-morrow we must have something in the way of hurdles to shut them in close under the wall, and they can be driven out to pasture every day by some of the men, with a guard to watch over them. You try and keep them under your eye now while I go and tell the Colonel.”
The two young men peered down at where the pattering of hoofs could be heard through the mist twenty feet below them; though nothing was visible but a dimly-seen moving mass.