"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! They'll be cutting our throats."
"Ye'll fight, lads, won't 'e? Don't let 'em terrify ye."
"O, Bob, lad, I be sure you'll get a bullet in your heart."
Jasper told the women to be quiet, and called his sergeant to him. Captain Curtiss was still an absentee. Gossip said that he had a love affair in London.
"That's Beachy Head, Cochrane."
"It is, sir."
"Fairlight should be lighting up. The signal will go in to Flimwell and Crowborough. Have the men had a meal?"
"They have, sir."
Jasper reflected a moment, with confused figures and a confused murmur of voices about him in the darkness. Some one had brought a lantern, but it was lost in the crowd.
Squire Christopher had utterly refused to desert the house.