At last, all being ready, the Colonel gave the order for the guard occupying the two towers which commanded the gales to report the state of affairs. Sergeant Gee had taken his place there, and he came down to announce that the sheep were in a very large flock, apparently huddled together about a hundred yards from the gate. But they were quite invisible, and their position could only be made out by their fidgety movements.
“Sounds to me, sir, as if they’d got wolves hanging about them, or maybe a bear.”
“Then they’ll be all the more ready to come into shelter,” said the Colonel, who then gave the word. The great leaves of the entrance were drawn inward, and, each party under his leader, the native servants slipped silently out in Indian file, turned to right and left, and disappeared in the darkness, the mist seeming to swallow them up after their third step.
“Quite a bit of sport, old fellow,” whispered Drummond, who had charge of the men on one side, Roberts being on the other, while the regular guard manned the tower and adjacent wall in strength, so as to see the fun, as they dubbed it.
All was silent now, and the only lights visible were those of the windows in the officers’ quarters, so that it was hard to imagine that many hundred men, for the most part unarmed, were listening eagerly for the first approach of the unsuspecting sheep.
The listeners were not kept in suspense as to whether plenty of roast mutton was to supersede the short commons of the past. There was what seemed to be a long period of silence and darkness, during which a cloud of dense mist floated in through the gateway to fill the court; and during this time of waiting the watchers, by other senses rather than sight, pictured the dark scouts playing the same part as falls to the lot of a collie dog at home, doubling round the great flock, whose restless trampling they could hear in the soft, wet soil. But at last there was the sound of many pattering feet, telling that the flock was in motion; and the suspense deepened, for the question was, “Would the men be able to head the sheep in, or would they dash off to right or left, avoiding the big opening through the gates as the mouth of a trap?”
“Will they—won’t they?” muttered Drummond; and Roberts, like the men in the angle hidden by the tower on the side, held his breath.
The minutes seemed long drawn out now, as the pent-up excitement increased; and Gedge, who was at the open window of the hospital quarters, reached out as far as he could, his heart beating hard as he listened, hearing the pattering quite plainly, and reporting progress to his officer, stretched upon his pallet. For the news had penetrated to where they were. Gedge had heard it from an ambulance sergeant, and hurried in to Bracy.
“Hoo-roar, sir!” he said excitedly, panting hard the while. “Tell yer direckly. It’s wonderful how soon I gets out o’ breath since I had my last wound,”—the knock-down from the stone in the pass was always “my first wound.”—“The boys have captured a flock o’ sheep, sir, and it’s going to be cuts out o’ roast legs and hot mutton-chops for us every day.”
Bracy sighed on hearing this.