hards?"

"There is a sort of murmur, as if there were a good many men there."

"Well, gentlemen, we had better go to our posts," the Major said.
"Doolan, please place your watch on the platforms by the wall. I will
take my party up onto the terrace. Doctor, will you bring up some of
those rockets you made the other day? We must try and find out what they
are doing."

As soon as he gained the terrace with his party, the Major requested
everyone to remain perfectly still, and going forward to the parapet
listened intently. In three or four minutes he returned to the others.

"There is a considerable body of men at work there," he said. "I can
hear muffled sounds like digging, and once or twice a sharp click, as
if a spade struck a stone. I am very much afraid they are throwing up a
battery there. I was in hopes they would have begun in the open, because
we could have commanded the approaches; but if they begin among the
trees, they can come in and out without our seeing them, and bring up
their guns by the road without our being able to interfere with them.
Mr. Bathurst, will you take down word to Captain Doolan to put his men
on the platforms on that side. Tell him that I am going to throw up a
rocket, as I believe they are erecting a battery near Hunter's bungalow,
and that his men are to be ready to give them a volley if they can
make them out. Tell them not to expose themselves too much; for if they
really are at work there no doubt they have numbers of men posted in the
shrubs all about to keep down our fire. Now, gentlemen, we will all lie
down by the parapet. Take those spare rifles, and fire as quickly as you
can while the light of the rocket lasts. Now, Mr. Wilson, we will get
you to send them up. The rest of you had better get in the corner and
stoop down behind the sandbags; you can lay your rifles on them, so as
to be able to fire as soon as you have lit the second rocket."

The Doctor soon came up with the rockets; he had made three dozen the
week before, and a number of blue lights, for the special purpose of
detecting any movement that the enemy might make at night.

"I will fire them myself," he said, as Wilson offered to take them. "I
have had charge of the fireworks in a score of fetes and that sort of
thing, and am a pretty good hand at it. There, we will lean them against
the sandbags. That is about it. Now, are you all ready, Major?"

"All ready!" replied the Major.

The Doctor placed the end