ed only one room, but this
was twenty feet square. There were three small windows, one looking
into the street, one looking up the valley, and one behind. The floor
was littered with the beams of the roof. The door was still in its
place. Having ascertained this, he ran back to the bodies of the two
men, picked up the three guns, took off their bandoliers, and removed
the pistols from their sashes; and with these, and one of their
swords, returned to the house, just as Surajah came back.

"This is the best house to defend, Surajah. There are some beams with
which we can block up the door."

Laying down the arms inside, they set to work with the beams, and
barricaded the door so firmly that, short of its being splintered to
pieces, no entry could be effected. This done, they re-charged the six
guns, examined the pistols, and finding that they were loaded, placed
three of them in each of their sashes, and hung the swords by their
sides. Then they went to the window looking up the valley. The
horsemen, some twenty in number, were but a short quarter of a mile
away, and were coming along at a gallop.

"Don't fire, Surajah," Dick said. "They will have heard, from the man
who has got away, that we are in the house opposite, and if they don't
find us there, they will think that we have gone on, and will ride
down the valley till they are sure they must be ahead of us. Then they
will search the ground carefully, as they come back, and altogether we
may gain an hour; and every moment is of use. It must be two o'clock
now, and our troop generally gets here soon after seven."

As he spoke, the horsemen drew up in front of the opposite hut. There
was a momentary pause, and then a voice said:

"It is empty."

Then followed the command:

"Ride on, men. They can't have got very far. We shall overtake them in
ten minutes."

As soon as they started, Dick said:

"Take a ramrod, Surajah, and make some holes through the walls, to
fire through. If we were to show ourselves at the windows, we might
get shot."

The walls were built of mud and clay, and with the iron ramrods they
had no difficulty in making four holes, an inch wide and two inches
high, on each side of the house.

"Now we are ready for them," Dick said, when they had finished. "They
have been gone half an hour, and it won't be long before they are
back."

In a few minutes, they heard the clatter of horses' hoofs. It ceased
some forty or fifty yards away, and by