"Will ye fight the lot then, Jack?" chuckled old Piper. "Ay, and wop em, too!" cried the little man, dodging, ducking. "Ave a slap at em first, and then go through--that's my idee." "It's not mine, though!" roared the Parson, catching him a rousing kick. "Get on with your undressing, d your eyes!" He finished his note and folded it. "And now for the sweet little cherub that sits up aloft." III He ran nimbly up the ladder, Kit at his heels. The chorister had ceased his song. Through the half-stuffed dormer, light streamed in on the white-washed wall, the cobwebs, rafters, and Polly in the corner, shining demure. "Now where the dooce has that boy got?" muttered the Parson, looking round. Kit pointed. In the darkest corner, under the slope of the roof, stood an apple-barrel. Out of it two frog-like legs thrust and kicked with the action of one swimming. A protuberance crowned the rim of the barrel. Body, head, and arms were lost. The Parson whipped up Polly. "One for yourself!" he roared, prodding the boy's bad eminence, "and one for The Doxie's Daughter!" "Hoi! that's Blo-ub!" yelled a muffled voice. Two hands shot out and plastered themselves over the stimulated part. There was a wriggle. Then Blob stood before them, touzled, pink, his ears wide, an apple tight between his teeth. "D'you call that keeping a look-out?" thundered the Parson. "Oi wur lookin out," said Blob, dogged and sullen. "Then you keep your eyes where few of us do." "Oi thart oi yerd a Frenchie in the bar'l," said Blob in the slow and undulating voice of Sussex. "Oi went fur to fetch un out, when a tarrabul great oarse-fly settled on ma butt-end and stung her." "It was no horse-fly," replied the Parson. "It was my dear lady. Now, don't bother to think of any more lies, my lad, but just take that lantern from the wall, and go below. We'll join you in a minute." IV The Parson pulled aside the hanging mattress, and peeped seaward. "Come here, boy. I want to show you the lie of the land. D'you see that chap in blue knickers in the shade of the sycamores?--he's the Gap Gang sentry. They're camped somewhere behind the knoll, the main of them. That's their smoke you see among the trees." That roaring chorus still rang in the boy's ear. "The drain runs to the right of the knoll, and out into the creek bang opposite the Wish. Half-way down it there's a man-hole." An icy pang pierced Kit's heart. "It's quite small, and a bush grows over it. It's a million to one they know nothing of it. Still you should--er--watch it." The Parson was gnawing his under-lip. "I'll watch it," said the boy, the waves breaking white about his face. It must be somewhere just about the man-hole that Fat George and Co. were camped. Still he wasn't going to let this soldier know he was afraid. But the soldier knew.