"Do for them once out and out, and be done with it!" was his final advice.
Hugh John could not keep from thinking how stale and unprofitable it would be when all the Smoutchies had been finally "done for," and when he did not waken to new problems of warfare every morning.
According to the final arrangements the main attack was to be developed from the broadest part of the castle island below the stepping-stones. There were two boats belonging to the house of Windy Standard, lying in a boat-house by the little pier on the way to Oaklands. For security these were attached by a couple of padlocks to a strong double staple, which had been driven right through the solid floor of the landing-stage.
The padlocks were new, and the whole appeared impregnable to the simple minds of the children, and even to Mike and Peter Greg. But Billy smiled as he looked at them.
"Why, opening them's as easy as falling off a stool when you're asleep. Gimme a hairpin."
But neither Prissy nor Cissy Carter had yet attained to the dignity of having their hair done up, so neither carried such a thing about with them. Business was thus at a standstill, when Hugh John called to Prissy, "Go and ask Jane Housemaid to give us one."
"A good thick 'un!" called Billy Blythe after her.
The swift-footed Dian of Windy Standard had only been away a minute or two before she came flying back like the wind.
"She-won't-give-us-any-unless-we-tell-her-what-it-is-for!" she panted, all in one long word.
"Rats!" said Hugh John contemptuously, "ask her where she was last Friday week at eleven o'clock at night!"
The Divine Huntress flitted away again on winged feet, and in a trice was back with three hairpins, still glossy from their recent task of supporting the well-oiled hair of Jane Housemaid.
With quick supple hand Billy twisted the wire this way and that, tried the padlock once, and then deftly bent the ductile metal again with a pair of small pincers. The wards clicked promptly back, and lo! the padlock was hanging by its curved tongue. The other was stiffer with rust, but was opened in the same way. The besiegers were thus in possession of two fine transports in which to convey their army to the scene of conflict.
It was the plan of the General that the men under Billy Blythe should fill the larger of the two boats, and drop secretly down the left channel till they were close under the walls of the castle. The enemy, being previously alarmed by the beating of drums and the musketry fire on the land side, would never expect to be taken in the rear, and probably would not have a single soldier stationed there.