"Certainly," said I, "I'll come at once." And I should have gone, there and then, but for the Colonel, who, as I laid a hand on the nearest piece of our barricade, promptly said, "I've only one way with deserters," and levelled a pistol at my head. "For Margaret's sake, sir," I pleaded in low tones. "Let me go!" She had flown like a bird across to us, and so heard me. "I had hoped you thought better of me, Master Wheatman," she said coldly, and went back to her watching. The sergeant heard, or at least understood, what had been said in the room. We heard him say, "You know your job. Fifty guineas for Wheatman, dead or alive. Any man who touches the girl will be flogged bare to the bones." Then we heard him walk off along the corridor. The dragoons without made no attempt on the door, and we joined Margaret at the window. Hardly had we got there when half a dozen dragoons dashed out of the porch and ran for the road. The Colonel flung the window open and emptied both his pistols at them, but they zigzagged like hares and the shots appeared to be thrown away. In the road they halted, formed a line in open order, and levelled their carbines at the window. All three of us moved aside, the Colonel tugging Margaret with him to the right while I hopped to the left. "Take it easy, Oliver," he said very good-humouredly. "Until they think of the wagon we're safe enough on this side. These walls would almost stand up to a carronade." With a clash the first bullet came through the window and knocked a huge splinter off a bedpost. There were six shots without, and six bullets spattered in a small area opposite. "That's quite good shooting," said the Colonel. "Much better than I expected from such poor stuff." I told him what Jack had said about the mixed quality of Brocton's dragoons. These good shots, I explained, were picked men off the Ridgeley estates, probably gamekeepers and bailiffs. "Very like," he said. "They're used to shooting but not to fighting. Rabbits are more in their line." There was no stir in the passage, and I wondered what the job was these men had in hand. The fusillade at the window was kept up unceasingly, generally in single shots, sometimes in twos and threes. The barricade took on a ragged appearance. I occupied my mind in thoughts of Margaret. She was in the corner, beyond her father. The bullets had by now nearly cleared the window of glass, fragments of which covered the floor of the room. Through the cracking and spluttering we at last heard the noise of a wagon moving. The Colonel and I leaped up and peered round the edge of the window. It was being pulled by two horses, and was shifted till it was exactly opposite the window, and to my surprise some twelve feet distant. The sacks made a firm platform level with the window-sill. Flush with the window it would have made an admirable means of attack, but why the space between?