JOHN BUCHAN Ultimate Collection: Spy Classics, Thrillers, Adventure Novels & Short Stories, Including Historical Works and Essays (Illustrated). Buchan John
is that?”
At the end of the verandah there was a clattering down of pots which could not be due to the wind, since the place was sheltered. There was as yet only the faintest hint of light, and black night still lurked in the crannies. Followed another fall of pots, as from a clumsy intruder, and then a man appeared, clear against the glass door by which the path descended to the rock garden. It was the fourth man, whom the three prisoners had awaited. Dickson had no doubt at all about his identity. He was that villain from whom all the others took their orders, the man whom the Princess shuddered at. Before starting he had loaded his pistol. Now he tugged it from his waterproof pocket, pointed it at the other and fired.
The man seemed to be hit, for he spun round and clapped a hand to his left arm. Then he fled through the door, which he left open.
Dickson was after him like a hound. At the door he saw him running and raised his pistol for another shot. Then he dropped it, for he saw something in the crouching, dodging figure which was familiar.
“A mistake,” he explained to Jaikie when he returned. “But the shot wasn’t wasted. I’ve just had a good try at killing the factor!”
CHAPTER 10
DEALS WITH AN ESCAPE AND A JOURNEY
Five scouts’ lanterns burned smokily in the ground room of the keep when Dickson ushered his charges through its cavernous door. The lights flickered in the gusts that swept after them and whistled through the slits of the windows, so that the place was full of monstrous shadows, and its accustomed odour of mould and disuse was changed to a salty freshness. Upstairs on the first floor Thomas Yownie had deposited the ladies’ baggage, and was busy making beds out of derelict iron bedsteads and the wraps brought from their room. On the ground floor on a heap of litter covered by an old scout’s blanket lay Heritage, with Dougal in attendance.
The Chieftain had washed the blood from the Poet’s brow, and the touch of cold water was bringing him back his senses. Saskia with a cry flew to him, and waved off Dickson who had fetched one of the bottles of liqueur brandy. She slipped a hand inside his shirt and felt the beating of his heart. Then her slim fingers ran over his forehead.
“A bad blow,” she muttered, “but I do not think he is ill. There is no fracture. When I nursed in the Alexander Hospital I learnt much about head wounds. Do not give him cognac if you value his life.”
Heritage was talking now and with strange tongues. Phrases like “lined Digesters” and “free sulphurous acid” came from his lips. He implored some one to tell him if “the first cook” was finished, and he upbraided some one else for “cooling off” too fast.
The girl raised her head. “But I fear he has become mad,” she said.
“Wheesht, Mem,” said Dickson, who recognized the jargon. “He’s a papermaker.”
Saskia sat down on the litter and lifted his head so that it rested on her breast. Dougal at her bidding brought a certain case from her baggage, and with swift, capable hands she made a bandage and rubbed the wound with ointment before tying it up. Then her fingers seemed to play about his temples and along his cheeks and neck. She was the professional nurse now, absorbed, sexless. Heritage ceased to babble, his eyes shut and he was asleep.
She remained where she was, so that the Poet, when a few minutes later he woke, found himself lying with his head in her lap. She spoke first, in an imperative tone: “You are well now. Your head does not ache. You are strong again.”
“No. Yes,” he murmured. Then more clearly: “Where am I? Oh, I remember, I caught a lick on the head. What’s become of the brutes?”
Dickson, who had extracted food from the Mearns Street box and was pressing it on the others, replied through a mouthful of Biscuit: “We’re in the old Tower. The three are lockit up in the House. Are you feeling better, Mr. Heritage?”
The Poet suddenly realized Saskia’s position and the blood came to his pale face. He got to his feet with an effort and held out a hand to the girl. “I’m all right now, I think. Only a little dicky on my legs. A thousand thanks, Princess. I’ve given you a lot of trouble.”
She smiled at him tenderly. “You say that when you have risked your life for me.”
“There’s no time to waste,” the relentless Dougal broke in. “Comin’ over here, I heard a shot. What was it?”
“It was me,” said Dickson. “I was shootin’ at the factor.”
“Did ye hit him?”
“I think so, but I’m sorry to say not badly. When I last saw him he was running too quick for a sore hurt man. When I fired I thought it was the other man—the one they were expecting.”
Dickson marvelled at himself, yet his speech was not bravado, but the honest expression of his mind. He was keyed up to a mood in which he feared nothing very much, certainly not the laws of his country. If he fell in with the Unknown, he was entirely resolved, if his Maker permitted him, to do murder as being the simplest and justest solution. And if in the pursuit of this laudable intention he happened to wing lesser game it was no fault of his.
“Well, it’s a pity ye didn’t get him,” said Dougal, “him being what we ken him to be… I’m for holding a council o’ war, and considerin’ the whole position. So far we haven’t done that badly. We’ve shifted our base without serious casualties. We’ve got a far better position to hold, for there’s too many ways into yon Hoose, and here there’s just one. Besides, we’ve fickled the enemy. They’ll take some time to find out where we’ve gone. But, mind you, we can’t count on their staying long shut up. Dobson’s no safe in the boiler-house, for there’s a skylight far up and he’ll see it when the light comes and maybe before. So we’d better get our plans ready. A word with ye, Mr. McCunn,” and he led Dickson aside.
“D’ye ken what these blagyirds were up to?” he whispered fiercely in Dickson’s ear. “They were goin’ to pushion the lassie. How do I ken, says you? Because Thomas Yownie heard Dobson say to Lean at the scullery door, ‘Have ye got the dope?’ he says, and Lean says, ‘Aye.’ Thomas mindit the word for he had heard about it at the Picters.”
Dickson exclaimed in horror.
“What d’ye make o’ that? I’ll tell ye. They wanted to make sure of her, but they wouldn’t have thought o’ dope unless the men they expectit were due to arrive at any moment. As I see it, we’ve to face a siege not by the three but by a dozen or more, and it’ll no’ be long till it starts. Now, isn’t it a mercy we’re safe in here?”
Dickson returned to the others with a grave face.
“Where d’you think the new folk are coming from?” he asked.
Heritage answered, “From Auchenlochan, I suppose? Or perhaps down from the hills?”
“You’re wrong.” And he told of Leon’s mistaken confidences to him in the darkness. “They are coming from the sea, just like the old pirates.”
“The sea,” Heritage repeated in a dazed voice.
“Ay, the sea. Think what that means. If they had been coming by the roads, we could have kept track of them, even if they beat us, and some of these laddies could have stuck to them and followed them up till help came. It can’t be such an easy job to carry a young lady against her will along Scotch roads. But the sea’s a different matter. If they’ve got a fast boat they could be out of the Firth and away beyond the law before we could wake up a single policeman. Ay, and even if the Government took it up and warned all the ports and ships at sea, what’s to hinder them to find a hidy-hole about Ireland—or Norway? I tell you, it’s a far more desperate business than I thought, and it’ll no’ do to wait on and trust that the Chief Constable will turn up afore the mischief’s done.”