"Not it," answered the Sergeant, "that's the 'nine-inch' at Heatherpoint, with a full charge!"
As the words left his lips a second crashing roar reverberated from the fort. Then, almost before Sergeant Watson could further comment upon the fact, a sound like rapid beating of a tom-tom came to them. Busy, drum-like notes, some deep and long-drawn, as if coming from the bowels of the earth, some sharp, short, and angry, took up the refrain.
"Hallo!" exclaimed Watson, amazed, "they're all at it. There's something up."
He stared at the sky, thence out to sea.
"Hallo, where's all our searchlights?" exclaimed Nobby.
"That's just what I was going to ask you," Watson answered; then instantly dropped down behind the wall, pulling his companion with him. Watson had seen a figure approaching from the road. The stranger wore mufti and a soft felt hat, and as he came stumbling and hurrying through the grass, leaping artillery flashes momentarily lifted him into view, and again plunged him into utter darkness.
Watson, with Nobby and two other men, had, under John's directions, kept a three-days' watch on Cherriton's cottage. At the present moment Cherriton himself was alone in the low, single-storied building which, from two workmen's dwellings, had been converted into an artistic residence.
Watson waited. And presently, in the silence between the roll of drumfire at the western end of the island, he could hear the fall of footsteps, and presently, through the screen of bushes, and in the light of gunfire he made out the figure of a tall young man, whose face for a moment looked familiar to him, then caused him to pull Nobby by the arm.
"Who is it, Nobby?" he asked.
The new-comer had reached Cherriton's gate and was hurrying into the little garden.