“See ’em, sir? No; it’s as black as the inside of a tar-barrel: but I can hear and fancy it all, and I’ve helped drive many a flock out Whitechapel way when I was a small boy. Here they come, though, patter, patter, and the chaps have done it splendid; they haven’t made a sound. Here they come; they must be half in by now. There’s some on ’em close under the winder, sir. Hear ’em puffing and breathing?”
“Yes, yes; I can hear them there quite plainly, Gedge. I hope they will secure them now, for every one’s sake.”
“So do I, sir; but they’re not caught till they’re all in and the gates is shut. Our sheep in London’s wild enough when they take fright, while these things is more like goats, and you know how they can run up among the rocks. Oh, steady, steady, out there; look sharp and shut those gates,” whispered the listener. “Oh, do mind! If I sees all them legs o’ mutton cutting their sticks off to the mountains I shall go mad.”
“What’s that?” cried Bracy, as in the wild flush of excitement that flashed through his brain it seemed as if he had received a galvanic shock, and he sat right up in his bed, to keep in that position, gazing wildly towards the darkened window.
Gedge doubtless replied, but his voice was drowned by the wild, warlike yell of triumph which rose from the court—a yell which told its own tale of the success of a ruse. The sheep had been driven into the court through the mist and darkness—a great flock; but with them fully a hundred tulwar and knife armed Dwats in their winter sheepskin-coats, who had crept in with the quiet sheep on all-fours, the placid animals having doubtless been accustomed to the manoeuvre, thought out and practised for weeks past, with a so far perfectly successful result.
The yell was answered by the Colonel’s voice shouting clearly the order for the gates to be shut; but the massacre had begun, the mad Mussulman fanatics who had undertaken the forlorn hope being ready to do or die; and, as the rattle of the moving gates began, an answering war-cry came from not far away, the rush of a large body of men making for the opening being plainly heard.
“Taken by surprise!” shouted Bracy wildly as he realised the horror. “Gedge, it means the slaughter of the poor women and our wounded comrades in the ward. Here, quick, my sword! my revolver! Quick! get one yourself.”
“I’ve got yours, sir, here,” cried Gedge excitedly as he snatched them from where they hung. “Don’t—don’t move, sir; you’re too weak and bad, and I’ll keep the window and the door, sir. They shan’t come near yer while I’m alive. After that—here, ketch hold, sir—your pistol, sir—after that you must lie still and shoot.”
The light had been extinguished, so that the sheep should not be scared by a glare from the window; and in the darkness, amidst the howls, yells, and shouts in the courtyard, Gedge felt for the bed so as to thrust the loaded revolver into Bracy’s hand. But, to his astonishment, a strong hand was laid upon his shoulder, and the sword was snatched from his grasp, while Bracy cried in a voice the lad hardly knew:
“Keep the pistol, close that door and window, and come on. Gedge, lad, we must try and keep the ward, before these savages get in.”