I've helped drive many a flock out
Whitechapel way when I was a small boy. Here they come, though, patter,
patter, and the chaps have done it splendid; they haven't made a sound.
Here they come; they must be half in by now. There's some on 'em close
under the winder, sir. Hear 'em puffing and breathing?"

"Yes, yes; I can hear them there quite plainly, Gedge. I hope they will
secure them now, for every one's sake."

"So do I, sir; but they're not caught till they're all in and the gates
is shut. Our sheep in London's wild enough when they take fright, while
these things is more like goats, and you know how they can run up among
the rocks. Oh, steady, steady, out there; look sharp and shut those
gates," whispered the listener. "Oh, do mind! If I sees all them legs
o' mutton cutting their sticks off to the mountains I shall go mad."

"What's that?" cried Bracy, as in the wild flush of excitement that
flashed through his brain it seemed as if he had received a galvanic
shock, and he sat right up in his bed, to keep in that position, gazing
wildly towards the darkened window.

Gedge doubtless replied, but his voice was drowned by the wild, warlike
yell of triumph which rose from the court--a yell which told its own
tale of the success of a _ruse_. The sheep had been driven into the
court through the mist and darkness--a great flock; but with them fully
a hundred tulwar and knife armed Dwats in their winter sheepskin-coats,
who had crept in with the quiet sheep on all-fours, the placid animals
having doubtless been accustomed to the manoeuvre, thought out and
practised for weeks past, with a so far perfectly successful result.

The yell was answered by the Colonel's voice shouting clearly the order
for the gates to be shut; but the massacre had begun, the mad Mussulman
fanatics who had undertaken the forlorn hope being ready to do or die;
and, as the rattle of the moving gates began, an answering war-cry came
from not far away, the rush of a large body of men making for the
opening being plainly heard.

"Taken by surprise!" shouted Bracy wildly as he realised the horror.
"Gedge, it means the slaughter of the poor women and our wounded
comrades in the ward. Here, quick, my sword! my revolver! Quick! get
one yourself."

"I've got yours, sir, here," cried Gedge excitedly as he snatched them
from where they hung. "Don't--don't move, sir; you're too weak and bad,
and I'll keep the window and the door, sir. Th