Gilbert clutched my arm like a vise. "If that man moves to the other side we are done! He will see his shadow on the screen!"
But, to our infinite joy, he passed in and down to join his comrades. Below, in the chapel, they played cards, changed sentries, and slept; all in complete unconsciousness of the ill trick we had played them.
Night was waning. Henrico pointed to a paler shadow on the crest above the creek. The wind had dropped; the air was filled with the sound of the tide seething in the rocks and weeds below us. Save that, all was still. Everything seemed to be watching and waiting.
Presently we could see one another's hands and faces. Henrico at once mustered all the defenders and posted them among the serried rocks on the talus.
It was an ambuscade in an amphitheatre. Some one dropped a musket, and, at the sound, we all glanced nervously at the lighthouse; no one stirred within, and we were crouching down—when a most horrid crash and volleying of shots broke out across the creek.
"On guard!" cried Henrico; "the patrol has found our outpost."
Even while he spoke, and even above the din, we caught the ring of quick hoarse cries of command from the lighthouse. The door was flung open and a stream of soldiers sallied forth—to instant death. From every stone of our ambuscade, spitting flashes converged on the open door. It was a butchery at such a point-blank range, and with a light behind to show the mark. The crash of our volley died away as swiftly as it commenced. For a moment I thought that not a man had escaped uninjured. Nothing but a tumbled, dark heap filled the doorway and the little circle of light. But, suddenly, from the shelter of the interior, some one struck down the candle inside with the butt end of a musket, and the darkness swallowed all up, for it was as night yet down there.
Then we became aware of the hushed silence that was about us. Not a shot resounded from the direction of our outpost. Had the attack failed or had they captured our post? Involuntarily I glanced at our screen. It was still there, now just dimly outlined on the paling sky. Gilbert called softly to Henrico to know what he thought of the silence at the other side. We saw Henrico craning over his rock, and striving to pierce the blackness at the foot of the creek; his hand was up to keep silent. At last, out of the vagueness of empty sounds, we caught a faint patter of footsteps, and, as we heard it, it came nearer and nearer: men running in desperate haste. In a trice they were below us in the shadows. Some one cried "Up here"; another called to Henrico: "They have left the post," and all in the same breath we were fighting for our lives!
TO BE CONCLUDED.