re some near at hand, with which we had intended to secure that
particular door. We were not long in putting them up, and placing a
heavy chest of drawers against them. Just as this was done, Mrs
Talboys exclaimed--

"Where is Lucy?"

"And where is Tom Pim?" I cried out.

Neither of them answered. Before any search could be made, Mr
Marchant, who had been watching at the other side of the house, shouted
out--

"The enemy are upon us I the enemy are upon us! Quick! quick!"

We hurried to our posts, and before many seconds had elapsed, a shower
of bullets came rattling against the walls.

"Fire away, my friends," cried Mr Talboys.

We obeyed the order with alacrity. I was thinking all the time,
however, as to what could have become of Tom and Lucy. In vain I
expected my messmate to hasten to his post. Again the blacks were
checked. Had they been a minute sooner, the case would have been very
different. They calculated, of course, on their friends getting in at
the back of the house, and causing a diversion in their favour. For
twenty minutes or more we kept loading and firing as fast as we could.
Mr Talboys was everywhere, now at one window, now at another, while the
clerk and Cato were guarding the back and wings of the house. How the
hours had passed by I could not tell, when at length I saw a faint light
in the eastern sky. It gradually increased in brightness, and in a
wonderfully short time daylight burst upon the world. As the blacks had
failed to get into the house during the night, it was less likely that
they would succeed during the day. They fired a parting volley, and
then, to our great satisfaction, beat a rapid retreat. The search for
Lucy and Tom was now renewed.

"Oh, my dear husband, what can have become of her?" cried Mrs Talboy in
accents of despair.

That they were not in the house was very certain. I proposed to sally
forth and search for them.

"I'll go myself," said Mr Talboys. "The rebels will be on the
look-out, and you very probably will be captured if you go alone."

He consented, however, to my accompanying him. We went out at the back
door, which Mr Talboys ordered to be closed after us. We had not gone
far when we discovered a ribbon, which I knew Miss Lucy had worn on her
shoulder.

"She must have been carried off by the blacks when they first burst into
the house," cried Mr Talboys.

"The wretches cannot have had the barbarity to injure her," I said.