Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/689

Rh out: "The signal! Xobody has thought of the signal!"

We knew of no signal, so we could not have thought of it.

"What signal may you mean, sir?" says Sergeant Drooce, looking sharp at him.

"There is a pile of wood upon the Signal Hill. If it could be lighted—which never has been done yet—it would be a signal of distress to the mainland."

Charker cries, directly: "Sergeant Drooce, dispatch me on that duty. Give me the two men who were on guard with me to-night, and I'll light the fire, if it can be done."

"And if it can't, corporal—" Mr. Macey strikes in.

"Look at these ladies and children, sir!" says Charker. "I'd sooner light myself, than not try any chance to save them."

We give him a hurrah!—it burst from us, come of it what might—and he got his two men, and was let out at the gate, and crept away. I had no sooner come back to my place from being one of the party to handle the gate, than Miss Maryon said in a low voice behind me:

"Davis, will you look at this powder. This is not right?"

I turned my head. Christian George King again, and treachery again! Sea water had been conveyed into the magazine, and every grain of powder was spoiled!

"Stay a moment," said Sergeant Drooce, when I had told him without causing a movement in a muscle of his face: "look to your pouch, my lad. You, Tom Packer, look to your pouch, confound you! Look to your pouches, all you marines."

The same artful savage had got at them, somehow or another, and the cartridges were all unserviceable. "Hum!" says the sergeant, "Look to your loading, men. You are right so far?"

Yes; we were right so far.

"Well, my lads, and gentleman all," says the sergeant, "this will be a hand-to-hand affair, and so much the better."

He treated himself to a pinch of snuff, and stood up, square-shouldered and broad-chested, in the light of the noon—which was now very bright—as cool as if he was waiting for a play to begin. He stood quiet, and we all