I made a novel plan of defence that was unanimously approved. I
posted a watch at every window. A little after dawn the baroness,
from behind a curtain, saw a squad of horsemen coming through the
grove.

"Ici! they have come!" said she, in a loud whisper. "There are not
four; there are many."

I took my detail of six men above-stairs. Each had a strip of
lumber we had found in the shop, and each carefully raised a
window, waiting the signal. I knew my peril, but I was never so
cool in my life. If I had been wiser, possibly I should have felt
it the more. The horsemen promptly deployed, covering every side
of the mansion. They stood close, mounted, pistol and sabre ready.
Suddenly I gave the signal. Then each of us thrust out the strip
of lumber stealthily, prodding the big drab cones on every side.
Hornets and wasps, a great swarm of them, sprang thick as seeds
from the hand of a sower. It was my part to unhouse a colony of
the long, white-faced hornets. Goaded by the ruin of their nests,
they saw the nodding heads below them, and darted at man and horse
like a night of arrows. They put their hot spurs into flank and
face and neck. I saw them strike and fall; they do hit hard, those
big-winged _Vespae_. It was terrible, the swift charge of that
winged battalion of the air. I heard howls of pain below me, and
the thunder of rushing feet. The horses were rearing and plunging,
the men striking with their hats.

I heard D'ri shouting and laughing at his window.

"Give 'em hell, ye little blue devils!" he yelled; and there was