“Do you understand?” breathed Ezra. “Some one is cutting through the ice! It’s a trap! The sledges are to cross this way.”
The sharp hissing of indrawn breaths told him that they appreciated the situation.
“That rasping, now, is made by a saw,” said Scarlett, guardedly. “I can see their plan, whoever they are. And a rarely pretty one it is. They will saw, in part, a stretch of ice that we were almost sure to cross. When we reached it, the ice would give way, and we, perhaps, but the cannon surely, would go to the bottom of the lake.”
“Ready with your rifles,” whispered Ezra.
Softly they stole forward. Clearer and clearer grew the sounds, and finally they were able to discern a dozen or more laboring forms in the darkness.
“Now,” said Ezra, as he sank to one knee and threw his rifle forward, “fire when I give the word.”
His comrades crouched beside him, their weapons leveled. And just then there came the gentle voice of Abdallah through the dimness.
“I think this will be a surprise, Jason Collyer. What do you say?”
A chuckling laugh followed this, apparently from the ferret-faced young man. And just then Ezra spoke the word, the five rifles rang out and a chorus of shrieks rang out in the stillness. There was a huddle of falling men, a scattering of others, then Ezra shouted:
“The pistols!”