"If they hear this, they'll get mad because I'm disobeyin' orders. They'll start lookin' for me. If they can't find me inside, maybe they'll look Outside. See that window? That's Sparks' turret. If we can make him look out here--" "_Stop talking!_" roared Roberts. "Stop talking, guy, and start blowing! I think you've got something there. Anyhow, it's our last hope. _Blow!_" "And quick!" appended Brown. "For here they come!" [Illustration: _Isobar played, blew with all his might, while the Grannies raged below._] He meant the Grannies. Again they were huddling for attack, once more, a solid phalanx of indestructible, granite flesh, they were smashing down upon the tree. "_Haa-a-roong!_" blew Isobar Jones. IV And--even he could not have foreseen the astounding results of his piping! What happened next was as astonishing as it was incomprehensible. For as the pipes, filled now and primed to burst into whatever substitute for melody they were prodded into, wailed into action--the Grannies' rush came to an abrupt halt! As one, they stopped cold in their tracks and turned dull, colorless, questioning eyes upward into the tree whence came this weird and vibrant droning! So stunned with surprise was Isobar that his grip on the pipes relaxed, his lips almost slipped from the reed. But Brown's delighted bellow lifted his paralysis. "Sacred rings of Saturn-look! They _like_ it! Keep playing, Jonesy! Play, boy, like you never played before!" And Roberts roared, above the skirling of the _piobaireachd_ into which Isobar had instinctively swung, "Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast! Then we were wrong. They _can_ hear, after all! See that? They're lying down to listen--like so many lambs! Keep playing, Isobar! For once in my life I'm glad to hear that lovely, wonderful music!" Isobar needed no urging. He, too, had noted how the Grannies' attack had stopped, how every last one of the gaunt grey beasts had suddenly, quietly, almost happily, dropped to its haunches at the base of the tree. There was no doubt about it; the Grannies _liked_ this music. Eyes raptly fixed, unblinking, unwavering, they froze into postures of gentle beatitude. One stirred once, dangerously, as for a moment Isobar paused to catch his breath, but Isobar hastily lipped the blow-pipe with redoubled eagerness, and the Granny relapsed into quietude. Followed then what, under somewhat different circumstances, should have been a piper's dream. For Isobar had an audience which would not--and in two cases _dared_ not--allow him to stop playing. And to this audience he played over and over again his entire repertoire. Marches, flings, dances--the stirring _Rhoderik Dhu_ and the lilting _Lassies O'Skye_, the mournful _Coghiegh nha Shie_ whose keening is like the sound of a sobbing nation. _The Cock o' the North_, he played, and _Mironton_ ... _Wee Flow'r o' Dee_ and _MacArthur's March_ ... _La Cucuracha_ and--