When it gleamed out, they saw Jane Ryan standing before them. Her arms were naked to the shoulder; her eyes glistened with a strange light. She held a loaded gun in her hands. The Ashbrooks were perfectly bewildered when they beheld this strange apparition awaking them in the silent hours of the night. “Jane!” exclaimed Richard Ashbrook, suddenly calling to his mind the warning given him in the earlier part of the night by his faithful and devoted servant. “Jane――what’s the matter? Speak, girl.” “Hush!” she murmured, placing her finger on her lips; “make no noise, or it may be fatal. Listen.” Both the farmers listened till their ears tingled, but they could hear nothing. A thought crossed the minds of both almost simultaneously, that the girl was (to use the expression they made use of afterwards) off her head. The brothers stared at each other in mute astonishment. “I can’t hear anything,” said John Ashbrook. “Don’t speak, master, but watch and wait; you will hear,” said Jane, in a low whisper. She was standing as if in anxious expectation――one hand raised to her ear, the other grasping the fowling-piece. The two Ashbrooks listened again, and as the moonlight ebbed slowly from the room like a great white wave streaming back towards the sea, they heard a thin scraping sound, which was unlike anything they had heard before. This mysterious sound was followed by deep and heavy blows. “Are you satisfied now?” said the maid. “What is it?” they inquired. She answered in a low, horse voice―― “Robbers, burglars, assassins!” The two farmers stole hastily but silently from their beds. Jane immediately left the room. They at once proceeded to arouse Mr. Cheadle and Jamblin. All this was done as noiselessly as possible. When the four men were up and dressed, Maude Ashbrook joined them, declaring that she would not leave the side of her brothers upon any consideration. They left the door wide open, and all crouched together in a corner. The sound of the burglars’ tools soon ceased――a sign that they were worked by practised hands. Indeed, no more skilful “cracksmen” existed at this time than Charles Peace, the Badger, and Cooney――the two first-named men have never been surpassed. The farmers and their friends silently awaited the movements of the robbers, who had without doubt, by this time, effected an entrance into the house. The party in the bedroom stood prepared for any emergency――they all cocked their guns. “Let us have no firing, except in self-defence,” said Mr. Cheadle. “There are four able-bodied men here, and it must go hard with us if we cannot hold our own.” “I shan’t be at all particular about peppering the scoundrels, whoever they may be,” returned John Ashbrook. “A set of lawless, midnight marauders――fellows of their stamp do not deserve pity or consideration.” They now heard muffled footsteps in the room beneath them, and immediately afterwards similar sounds were heard on the stairs.