Then for the first time Wat and Scarlett perceived whither Marie was leading the enemy. Ever as she came nearer she raised her arm and waved them to be ready. But with what they were to be ready did not appear, unless with their pistols, to have a chance at the rascals as they passed under the wall. Yet it was not a place favorable for pistol practice, because at that point the wall was broken down and fully thirty feet of it completely undermined and tottering to its fall. "The wall, the wall! Push down the wall!" cried Marie, as she came almost underneath it. It was Scarlett who first grasped her idea. Wat on his part was too much astonished at the daring and address of this girl to be capable of more than a vague, gaping wonderment. "Quick, Wat!" cried Scarlett; "it must be the overhanging wall she means. See you not that these fellows, being ignorant of our presence, it is a thousand chances to one that for ease of road and haste to get before the lass to keep her away from the sea, they will take the path through the ravine and pass immediately underneath the wall?" "And what of that?" asked Wat. "What of that? Why, man, what is come of your ancient contrivance, your wise shifts, your forethought? How will you ever find your love if your wits are so moidered, before ever ye leave this dull Dutch country?" "Faith, and I see it not yet," cried Wat, looking over at the chase more bewildered than ever. "Why, she means that we are to push the wall over upon them when they come, I'll wager," said Scarlett. "And so destroy our only defences; it is, indeed, a wise ploy!" cried Wat, scornfully. "Hush, man, and come help. We may annihilate the whole crew at a blow," said the old soldier, who had no petty scruples about ways and means; "an enemy dead is a friend the more, however he come by his end." Scarlett and Wat stole to the wall and peeped cautiously over. The ill-laid and mouldered stones tottered even as they leaned against them; one or two rattled into the defile as they looked down. The heads of the pursuers were just appearing at the entrance of the dell. One of them was training his piece to shoot it off at the girl, who ran lightly as at a frolic a hundred yards in front. Without a suspicion of danger the assailants came posting along. "Now, with all your might!" cried Scarlett, when he saw the villains exactly underneath. He could plainly descry the same four men who had sat about the table in the Hostel of the Coronation, and some of the others also who had flocked in thither to join the fray. So without further word Wat and Scarlett set their thews to the wall; and between them, panting with the long chase and grimed with powder, where the touchhole had spat up in her face, the Little Marie threw herself on the parapet to help on the catastrophe with all her feeble strength.