Violet Jacob > Flemington

i58
FLEMINGTON
town, for its main sympathies were with his side,
and the force on the Government vessel would
be prevented from coming over the strait to
oppose him until he was settled on his eminence
by the powerful dissuaders he had left behind
him on Inchbrayock. He was to begin firing
from Dial Hill at dawn, and James, who was near
enough to the Venture to see any movement that
might take place on her, was to be ready with
his fire and with his small party of marksmen to
check any offensive force despatched from the
ship to the quays. Hall would thus be cut off
from the town by the fire from Inchbrayock, on
the one hand, and, should he attempt a landing
nearer to the watermouth, by the guns on Dial
Hill, on the other.
James had placed himself advantageously. The
thicket of elder and thorn which had engulfed
one end of the burial-ground made excellent con¬
cealment, and in front of him was the solid wall,
through a gap in which he had turned the muzzle
of his six-pounder. He sat on the stump of a
thorn-tree, his head in his hands, waiting, as he
knew he would have to wait, for some time yet,
till the first round from Dial Hill should be the
signal for his own attack. The moon had made
her journey by this hour, and while she had been
caught in her course through the zenith in the
web of cloud and mist that thickened the sky,
she was now descending towards her rest through
a clear stretch ; she swung, as though suspended