across his yellow overcoat a case with a
revolver in it. So that his light-clad modern figure showed up oddly
beside the pompous purple uniforms of his halberdiers, which darkly
but richly coloured the black night.

At length a shrill trumpet rang from some way up the street; it was
the signal of advance. Buck briefly gave the word, and the whole
purple line, with its dimly shining steel, moved up the side alley.
Before it was a slope of street, long, straight, and shining in the
dark. It was a sword pointed at Pump Street, the heart at which nine
other swords were pointed that night.

A quarter of an hour's silent marching brought them almost within
earshot of any tumult in the doomed citadel. But still there was no
sound and no sign of the enemy. This time, at any rate, they knew that
they were closing in on it mechanically, and they marched on under the
lamplight and the dark without any of that eerie sense of ignorance
which Barker had felt when entering the hostile country by one avenue
alone.

"Halt--point arms!" cried Buck, suddenly, and as he spoke there came a
clatter of feet tumbling along the stones. But the halberds were
levelled in vain. The figure that rushed up was a messenger from the
contingent of the North.

"Victory, Mr. Buck!" he cried, panting; "they are ousted. Provost
Wilson of Bayswater has taken Pump Street."

Buck ran forward in his excitement.

"Then, which way are they retreating? It must be either by St. Luke's
to meet Swindon, or by the Gas Company to meet us. Run like mad to
Swindon, and see that the yellows are holding the St. Luke's Road. We
will hold this, never fear. We have them in an iron trap. Run!"

As the messenger dashed away into the darkness, the great guard of
North Kensington swung on with the certainty of a machine. Yet
scarcely a hundred yards further their halberd-points again fell in
line gleaming in the gaslight; for again a clatter of feet was heard
on the stones, and again it proved to be only the messenger.

"Mr. Provost," he said, "the yellow West Kensingtons have been
holding the road by St. Luke's for twenty minutes since the capture of
Pump Street. Pump Street is not two hundred yards away; they cannot be
retreating down that road."

"Then they are retreating down this," said Provost Buck, with a final
cheerfulness, "and by good fortune down a well-lighted road, though it
twists about. Forward!"

As they moved along the last three hundred yards of th