"Suppose we tickle them up with the pea-shooter first," suggested Lickford. "Mind how you go over the chairs, Cash," added he, as that hero in the dark got entangled in the second line of fortifications. "All serene--wire away! Young Ashby, you'd better mix up some soap and coal-dust in the water for use when the ink's done." By this time the attack without had redoubled, and Cash, mounting up to the loophole, began to operate on the besiegers with his pea-shooter. He had to guess where to shoot, for though the gas was alight in the passage, he was unable for anatomical reasons to look and shoot through the same hole at the same time. However, he had the satisfaction of feeling sure his fire was taking effect, by the aggravated exclamations of the besiegers, who vowed terrific vengeance for this fresh insult. In due time the marksman fell short of ammunition and was carefully helped down from his post in the dark, while Wally and Percy, gingerly carrying the squirt, ascended in his place. "Hand up the basin," said Wally, "and get another lot of water ready." "I say," said Fisher minor, who was always being seized by heroic impulses, "if you could let me down out of the window by the rope, I'd be able to get a candle." "Good old `How now!' awfully good notion," said Wally. "You chaps see to that, while my young brother and I work the squirt. Don't tell anybody what's up, young Fisher, and get back as soon as you can." So, while the squirt was carefully being levelled in the face of the enemy, Fisher minor, with the end of the rope round his waist, was swinging precariously in mid-air out of the window, heartily repenting, until his feet touched _terra firma_, of his rash and desperate undertaking. Before he was safe, the great attack had been delivered through the loophole. The kickers had receded from the door a pace or two in order to get up impetus for a combined onslaught, and Clapperton with a poker in his hand was advancing to annihilate the lock, when Percy, who was reconnoitring from the ventilating holes, gave the signal to have at them. Whereupon Wally let fly with all his might, and converted half of the enemy, their captain included, into Ethiopians. The effect was instantaneous. The four-footed kick did not come off. Clapperton's poker fell with a clatter on the floor, and a howl went up which electrified both besiegers and besieged. "Look alive now!" said Wally. "Let 'em have the water! Keep it up!" For five minutes an almost uninterrupted flow of coloured water poured through the loophole and kept the enemy at bay. But even a jugful will not last for ever, and presently the squirt gave a dismal groan on the bottom of the basin. Almost at the same moment an ominous crack proclaimed that the good old door was giving way by degrees under the now renewed attack of the besiegers. "They'll have it, after all," said Percy.