Then I bethought me of what might be going on above, and the flush of my triumph cooled quickly. For I thought that there was only Agnes Anne, and who knows what weakness she may not have committed. She would never have thought, for instance, of such a thing as covering in the flame with earth to put it out. To tell the truth, I did think very masterfully of myself at that moment, and perhaps with some cause, for not one in a thousand would have had the "engine" to do as I had done. When I got to the top of the stairs, I heard cries from without, which had been smothered by the deepness of the dungeon in which I had been labouring to put out the fire. For a moment I thought that by the failure of Agnes Anne to fire off "King George" at the proper moment, the door had been forced and we utterly lost. Which seemed the harder to be borne, that I had just saved all our lives in a way so original and happy. But I was wrong. The shouting came not from the wicked crew of the privateersman, but from the shouting of a vast number of people, most of them mounted on farm and country horses, with some of finer limb and better blood, managed by young fellows having the air of laird's sons or others of some position. None of these had his face bare. But in place of the black highwayman masks of the followers of Galligaskins, these wore only a strip of white kerchief across the face, though, as I could see, more for the form of the thing than from any real apprehension of danger. Indeed, in the very forefront of the cavalcade I saw our own two cart horses, Dapple and Dimple, and the lighter mare Bess, which my grandfather used for riding to and fro upon his milling business. I had not the least doubt that my three uncles were bestriding them, though I never knew that there were any arms about the house except the old fowling-piece belonging to grandfather, with which on moonlight nights he killed the hares that came to nibble the plants in his cabbage garden. Soon the sailors and their abettors were fleeing in every direction. But, what took me very much by surprise, there was no firing or cutting down, though there was a good deal of smiting with the flat of the sword. And at the entrance of the ice-mound I saw a great many very scurvy fellows come trickling out, all burned and scorched, to run the gauntlet of a row of men on foot, who drubbed them soundly with cudgels before letting them go. Seeing this, I opened the window and shouted with all my might. "Apprehend them! They are villains and thieves. They have broken into this house and tried to kill us all, besides setting fire to the cellar and everything in it!" The men without, both those on foot and those on horseback, had been calm till they heard this, and then, lo! each cavalier dismounted and all came running to the door, calling on us to open instantly.