e servants, under the guidance of a couple of
the friendly hill-men, accustomed to look after the camp live-stock,
were detailed with their orders to divide as soon as the gates were
opened, and steal cautiously round to the far side of the flock before
trying to head them in.

Strict orders had been given to keep the court still and dark, so that
the sheep might not take fright upon reaching the gates; while the news
spread very rapidly, and the men turned out of their rough quarters,
seeking the walls, so as to try and see something of what was going on.

At last, all being ready, the Colonel gave the order for the guard
occupying the two towers which commanded the gales to report the state
of affairs. Sergeant Gee had taken his place there, and he came down to
announce that the sheep were in a very large flock, apparently huddled
together about a hundred yards from the gate. But they were quite
invisible, and their position could only be made out by their fidgety
movements.

"Sounds to me, sir, as if they'd got wolves hanging about them, or maybe
a bear."

"Then they'll be all the more ready to come into shelter," said the
Colonel, who then gave the word. The great leaves of the entrance were
drawn inward, and, each party under his leader, the native servants
slipped silently out in Indian file, turned to right and left, and
disappeared in the darkness, the mist seeming to swallow them up after
their third step.

"Quite a bit of sport, old fellow," whispered Drummond, who had charge
of the men on one side, Roberts being on the other, while the regular
guard manned the tower and adjacent wall in strength, so as to see the
fun, as they dubbed it.

All was silent now, and the only lights visible were those of the
windows in the officers' quarters, so that it was hard to imagine that
many hundred men, for the most part unarmed, were listening eagerly for
the first approach of the unsuspecting sheep.

The listeners were not kept in suspense as to whether plenty of roast
mutton was to supersede the short commons of the past. There was what
seemed to be a long period of silence and darkness, during which a cloud
of dense mist floated in through the gateway to fill the court; and
during this time of waiting the watchers, by other senses rather than
sight, pictured the dark scouts playing the same part as falls to the
lot of a collie dog at home, doubling round the great flock, whose
restless trampling they could