Chapter V. Of the Princess in the Tower

Huntingtower

by John Buchan

Very early the next morning, while Mrs. Morran was still
cooking breakfast, Dickson and Heritage might have been observed
taking the air in the village street. It was the Poet who had
insisted upon this walk, and he had his own purpose. They looked at
the spires of smoke piercing the windless air, and studied the
daffodils in the cottage gardens. Dickson was glum, but Heritage
seemed in high spirits. He varied his garrulity with spells of
cheerful whistling.

They strode along the road by the park wall till they reached
the inn. There Heritage's music waxed peculiarly loud. Presently
from the yard, unshaven and looking as if he had slept in this
clothes, came Dobson the innkeeper.

"Good morning," said the poet. "I hope the sickness in your
house is on the mend?"

"Thank ye, it's no worse," was the reply, but in the man's
heavy face there was little civility. His small grey eyes searched
their faces.

"We're just waiting for breakfast to get on the road again.
I'm jolly glad we spent the night here. We found quarters after
all, you know."

"So I see. Whereabouts, may I ask?"

"Mrs. Morran's. We could always have got in there, but we
didn't want to fuss an old lady, so we thought we'd try the inn
first. She's my friend's aunt."

At this amazing falsehood Dickson started, and the man
observed his surprise. The eyes were turned on him like a
searchlight. They roused antagonism in his peaceful soul, and with
that antagonism came an impulse to back up the Poet. "Ay," he said,
"she's my auntie Phemie, my mother's half-sister."

The man turned on Heritage.

"Where are ye for the day?"

"Auchenlochan," said Dickson hastily. He was still determined
to shake the dust of Dalquharter from his feet.

The innkeeper sensibly brightened. "Well, ye'll have a fine
walk. I must go in and see about my own breakfast. Good day to ye,
gentlemen."

"That," said Heritage as they entered the village street
again, "is the first step in camouflage, to put the enemy off his
guard."

"It was an abominable lie," said Dickson crossly.

"Not at all. It was a necessary and proper ruse de guerre.
It explained why we spent the right here, and now Dobson and his
friends can get about their day's work with an easy mind. Their
suspicions are temporarily allayed, and that will make our job
easier."

"I'm not coming with you."

"I never said you were. By 'we' I refer to myself and the
red-headed boy."

"Mistress, you're my auntie," Dickson informed Mrs. Morran as
she set the porridge on the table. "This gentleman has just been
telling the man at the inn that you're my Auntie Phemie."

For a second their hostess looked bewildered. Then the
corners of her prim mouth moved upwards in a slow smile.

"I see," she said. "Weel, maybe it was weel done. But if
ye're my nevoy ye'll hae to keep up my credit, for we're a bauld and
siccar lot."

Half an hour later there was a furious dissension when Dickson
attempted to pay for the night's entertainment. Mrs. Morran would
have none of it. "Ye're no' awa' yet," she said tartly, and the
matter was complicated by Heritage's refusal to take part in the
debate. He stood aside and grinned, till Dickson in despair
returned his notecase to his pocket, murmuring darkly the "he would
send it from Glasgow."

The road to Auchenlochan left the main village street at right
angles by the side of Mrs. Morran's cottage. It was a better road
than that by which they had come yesterday, for by it twice daily
the postcart travelled to the post-town. It ran on the edge of the
moor and on the lip of the Garple glen, till it crossed that stream
and, keeping near the coast, emerged after five miles into the
cultivated flats of the Lochan valley. The morning was fine, the
keen air invited to high spirits, plovers piped entrancingly over
the bent and linnets sang in the whins, there was a solid breakfast
behind him, and the promise of a cheerful road till luncheon. The
stage was set for good humour, but Dickson's heart, which should
have been ascending with the larks, stuck leadenly in his boots. He
was not even relieved at putting Dalquharter behind him. The
atmosphere of that unhallowed place lay still on his soul. He hated
it, but he hated himself more. Here was one, who had hugged himself
all his days as an adventurer waiting his chance, running away at
the first challenge of adventure; a lover of Romance who fled from
the earliest overture of his goddess. He was ashamed and angry, but
what else was there to do? Burglary in the company of a queer poet
and a queerer urchin? It was unthinkable.

Presently, as they tramped silently on, they came to the
bridge beneath which the peaty waters of the Garple ran in
porter-coloured pools and tawny cascades. From a clump of elders on
the other side Dougal emerged. A barefoot boy, dressed in much the
same parody of a Boy Scout's uniform, but with corduroy shorts
instead of a kilt, stood before him at rigid attention. Some
command was issued, the child saluted, and trotted back past the
travellers with never a look at them. Discipline was strong among
the Gorbals Die-Hards; no Chief of Staff ever conversed with his
General under a stricter etiquette.

Dougal received the travellers with the condescension of a
regular towards civilians.

"They're off their gawrd," he announced. Thomas Yownie has
been shadowin' them since skreigh o' day, and he reports that Dobson
and Lean followed ye till ye were out o' sight o' the houses, and
syne Lean got a spy-glass and watched ye till the road turned in
among the trees. That satisfied them, and they're both away back to
their jobs. Thomas Yownie's the fell yin. Ye'll no fickle Thomas
Yownie."

Dougal extricated from his pouch the fag of a cigarette, lit
it, and puffed meditatively. "I did a reckonissince mysel' this
morning. I was up at the Hoose afore it was light, and tried the
door o' the coal-hole. I doot they've gotten on our tracks, for it
was lockit--aye, and wedged from the inside."

Dickson brightened. Was the insane venture off?

"For a wee bit I was fair beat. But I mindit that the lassie
was allowed to walk in a kind o' a glass hoose on the side farthest
away from the Garple. That was where she was singin' yest'reen. So
I reckonissinced in that direction, and I fund a queer place."
Sacred Songs and Solos was requisitioned, and on a page of it Dougal
proceeded to make marks with the stump of a carpenter's pencil. "See
here," he commanded. "There's the glass place wi' a door into the
Hoose. That door maun be open or the lassie maun hae the key, for
she comes there whenever she likes. Now' at each end o' the place
the doors are lockit, but the front that looks on the garden is
open, wi' muckle posts and flower-pots. The trouble is that that
side there' maybe twenty feet o' a wall between the pawrapet and the
ground. It's an auld wall wi' cracks and holes in it, and it
wouldn't be ill to sklim. That's why they let her gang there when
she wants, for a lassie couldn't get away without breakin' her
neck."

"Could we climb it?" Heritage asked.

The boy wrinkled his brows. "I could manage it mysel'--I
think--and maybe you. I doubt if auld McCunn could get up. Ye'd
have to be mighty carefu' that nobody saw ye, for your hinder end,
as ye were sklimmin', wad be a grand mark for a gun."

"Lead on," said Heritage. "We'll try the verandah."

They both looked at Dickson, and Dickson, scarlet in the face,
looked back at them. He had suddenly found the thought of a
solitary march to Auchenlochan intolerable. Once again he was at
the parting of the ways, and once more caprice determined his
decision. That the coal-hole was out of the question had worked a
change in his views, Somehow it seemed to him less burglarious to
enter by a verandah. He felt very frightened but--for the moment-
quite resolute.

"I'm coming with you," he said.

"Sportsman," said Heritage, and held out his hand. "Well
done, the auld yin," said the Chieftain of the Gorbals Die-Hards.
Dickson's quaking heart experienced a momentary bound as he followed
Heritage down the track into the Garple Dean.

The track wound through a thick covert of hazels, now close to
the rushing water, now high upon the bank so that clear sky showed
through the fringes of the wood. When they had gone a little way
Dougal halted them.

"It's a ticklish job," he whispered. "There's the tinklers,
mind, that's campin' in the Dean. If they're still in their camp we
can get by easy enough, but they're maybe wanderin' about the wud
after rabbits....Then we maun ford the water, for ye'll no' cross it
lower down where it's deep....Our road is on the Hoose side o' the
Dean, and it's awfu' public if there's onybody on the other side,
though it's hid well enough from folk up in the policies....Ye maun
do exactly what I tell ye. When we get near danger I'll scout on
ahead, and I daur ye to move a hair o' your heid till I give the
word."

Presently, when they were at the edge of the water, Dougal
announced his intention of crossing. Three boulders in the stream
made a bridge for an active man, and Heritage hopped lightly over.
Not so Dickson, who stuck fast on the second stone, and would
certainly have fallen in had not Dougal plunged into the current and
steadied him with a grimy hand. The leap was at last successfully
taken, and the three scrambled up a rough scaur, all reddened with
iron springs, till they struck a slender track running down the Dean
on its northern side. Here the undergrowth was very thick, and they
had gone the better part of half a mile before the covert thinned
sufficiently to show them the stream beneath. Then Dougal halted
them with a finger on his lips, and crept forward alone.

He returned in three minutes. "Coast's clear," he whispered.
"The tinklers are eatin' their breakfast. They're late at their
meat though they're up early seekin' it."

Progress was now very slow and secret, and mainly on all
fours. At one point Dougal nodded downward, and the other two saw on
a patch of turf, where the Garple began to widen into its estuary, a
group of figures round a small fire. There were four of them, all
men, and Dickson thought he had never seen such ruffianly-looking
customers. After that they moved high up the slope, in a shallow
glade of a tributary burn, till they came out of the trees and found
themselves looking seaward.

On one side was the House, a hundred yards or so back from the
edge, the roof showing above the precipitous scarp. Half-way down
the slope became easier, a jumble of boulders and boiler-plates,
till it reached the waters of the small haven, which lay calm as a
mill-pond in the windless forenoon. The haven broadened out at its
foot and revealed a segment of blue sea. The opposite shore was
flatter, and showed what looked like an old wharf and the ruins of
buildings, behind which rose a bank clad with scrub and surmounted
by some gnarled and wind-crooked firs.

"There's dashed little cover here," said Heritage.

"There's no muckle," Dougal assented. "But they canna see us
from the policies, and it's no' like there's anybody watchin' from
the Hoose. The danger is somebody on the other side, but we'll have
to risk it. Once among thae big stones we're safe. Are ye
ready?"

Five minutes later Dickson found himself gasping in the lee of
a boulder, while Dougal was making a cast forward. The scout
returned with a hopeful report. "I think we're safe till we get
into the policies. There's a road that the auld folk made when
ships used to come here. Down there it's deeper than Clyde at the
Broomielaw. Has the auld yin got his wind yet? There's no time to
waste."

Up that broken hillside they crawled, well in the cover of the
tumbled stones, till they reached a low wall which was the boundary
of the garden. The House was now behind them on their right rear,
and as they topped the crest they had a glimpse of an ancient
dovecot and the ruins of the old Huntingtower on the short thymy
turf which ran seaward to the cliffs. Dougal led them along a sunk
fence which divided the downs from the lawns behind the house, and,
avoiding the stables, brought them by devious ways to a thicket of
rhododendrons and broom. On all fours they travelled the length of
the place, and came to the edge where some forgotten gardeners had
once tended a herbaceous border. The border was now rank and wild,
and, lying flat under the shade of an azalea, and peering through
the young spears of iris, Dickson and Heritage regarded the
north-western facade of the house.

The ground before them had been a sunken garden, from which a
steep wall, once covered with creepers and rock plants, rose to a
long verandah, which was pillared and open on that side; but at each
end built up half-way and glazed for the rest. There was a glass
roof, and inside untended shrubs sprawled in broken plaster
vases.

"Ye maun bide here," said Dougal, "and no cheep above your
breath. Afore we dare to try that wall, I maun ken where Lean and
Spittal and Dobson are. I'm off to spy the policies.' He glided
out of sight behind a clump of pampas grass.

For hours, so it seemed, Dickson was left to his own
unpleasant reflections. His body, prone on the moist earth, was
fairly comfortable, but his mind was ill at ease. The scramble up
the hillside had convinced him that he was growing old, and there
was no rebound in his soul to counter the conviction. He felt
listless, spiritless--an apathy with fright trembling somewhere at
the back of it. He regarded the verandah wall with foreboding. How
on earth could he climb that? And if he did there would be his
exposed hinder-parts inviting a shot from some malevolent gentleman
among the trees. He reflected that he would give a large sum of
money to be out of this preposterous adventure.

Heritage's hand was stretched towards him, containing two of
Mrs. Morran's jellied scones, of which the Poet had been wise enough
to bring a supply in his pocket. The food cheered him, for he was
growing very hungry, and he began to take an interest in the scene
before him instead of his own thoughts. He observed every detail of
the verandah. There was a door at one end, he noted, giving on a
path which wound down to the sunk garden. As he looked he heard a
sound of steps and saw a man ascending this path.

It was the lame man whom Dougal had called Spittal, the
dweller in the South Lodge. Seen at closer quarters he was an
odd-looking being, lean as a heron, wry-necked, but amazingly quick
on his feet. Had not Mrs. Morran said that he hobbled as fast as
other folk ran? He kept his eyes on the ground and seemed to be
talking to himself as he went, but he was alert enough, for the
dropping of a twig from a dying magnolia transferred him in an
instant into a figure of active vigilance. No risks could be run
with that watcher. He took a key from his pocket, opened the garden
door and entered the verandah. For a moment his shuffle sounded on
its tiled floor, and then he entered the door admitting from the
verandah to the House. It was clearly unlocked, for there came no
sound of a turning key.

Dickson had finished the last crumbs of his scones before the
man emerged again. He seemed to be in a greater hurry than ever as
he locked the garden door behind him and hobbled along the west
front of the House till he was lost to sight. After that the time
passed slowly. A pair of yellow wagtails arrived and played at
hide-and-seek among the stuccoed pillars. The little dry scratch of
their claws was heard clearly in the still air. Dickson had almost
fallen asleep when a smothered exclamation from Heritage woke him to
attention. A girl had appeared in the verandah.

Above the parapet he saw only her body from the waist up. She
seemed to be clad in bright colours, for something red was round her
shoulders and her hair was bound with an orange scarf. She was
tall--that he could tell, tall and slim and very young. Her face was
turned seaward, and she stood for a little scanning the broad
channel, shading her eyes as if to search for something on the
extreme horizon. The air was very quiet and he thought that he
could hear her sigh. Then she turned and re-entered the House,
while Heritage by his side began to curse under his breathe with a
shocking fervour.

One of Dickson's troubles had been that he did not believe
Dougal's story, and the sight of the girl removed one doubt. That
bright exotic thing did not belong to the Cruives or to Scotland at
all, and that she should be in the House removed the place from the
conventional dwelling to which the laws against burglary applied.

There was a rustle among the rhododendrons and the fiery face
of Dougal appeared. He lay between the other two, his chin on his
hands, and grunted out his report.

"After they had their dinner Dobson and Lean yokit a horse and
went off to Auchenlochan. I seen them pass the Garple brig, so
that's two accounted for. Has Spittal been round here?"

"Half an hour ago," said Heritage, consulting a wrist
watch.

"It was him that keepit me waitin' so long. But he's safe
enough now, for five minutes syne he was splittin' firewood at the
back door o' his hoose....I've found a ladder, an auld yin in yon
lot o' bushes. It'll help wi' the wall. There! I've gotten my
breath again and we can start."

The ladder was fetched by Heritage and proved to be ancient
and wanting many rungs, but sufficient in length. The three stood
silent for a moment, listening like stags, and then ran across the
intervening lawn to the foot of the verandah wall. Dougal went up
first, then Heritage, and lastly Dickson, stiff and giddy from his
long lie under the bushes. Below the parapet the verandah floor was
heaped with old garden litter, rotten matting, dead or derelict
bulbs, fibre, withies, and strawberry nets. It was Dougal's
intention to pull up the ladder and hide it among the rubbish
against the hour of departure. But Dickson had barely put his foot
on the parapet when there was a sound of steps within the House
approaching the verandah door.

The ladder was left alone. Dougal's hand brought Dickson
summarily to the floor, where he was fairly well concealed by a mess
of matting. Unfortunately his head was in the vicinity of some
upturned pot-plants, so that a cactus ticked his brow and a spike of
aloe supported painfully the back of his neck. Heritage was prone
behind two old water-butts, and Dougal was in a hamper which had
once contained seed potatoes. The house door had panels of opaque
glass, so the new-comer could not see the doings of the three till
it was opened, and by that time all were in cover.

The man--it was Spittal--walked rapidly along the verandah and
out of the garden door. He was talking to himself again, and
Dickson, who had a glimpse of his face, thought he looked both evil
and furious. Then came some anxious moments, for had the man glanced
back when he was once outside, he must have seen the tell-tale
ladder. But he seemed immersed in his own reflections, for he
hobbled steadily along the house front till he was lost to sight.

"That'll be the end o' them the day," said Dougal, as he
helped Heritage to pull up the ladder and stow it away. "We've got
the place to oursels, now. Forward, men, forward." He tried the
handle of the House door and led the way in.

A narrow paved passage took them into what had once been the
garden room, where the lady of the house had arranged her flowers,
and the tennis racquets and croquet mallets had been kept. It was
very dusty, and on the cobwebbed walls still hung a few soiled
garden overalls. A door beyond opened into a huge murky hall, murky,
for the windows were shuttered, and the only light came through
things like port-holes far up in the wall. Dougal, who seemed to
know his way about, halted them. "Stop here till I scout a bit.
The women bide in a wee room through that muckle door." Bare feet
stole across the oak flooring, there was the sound of a door
swinging on its hinges, and then silence and darkness. Dickson put
out a hand for companionship and clutched Heritage's; to his
surprise it was cold and all a-tremble. They listened for voices,
and thought they could detect a far-away sob.

It was some minutes before Dougal returned. "A bonny kettle
o' fish," he whispered. "They're both greetin'. We're just in
time. Come on, the pair o' ye."

Through a green baize door they entered a passage which led to
the kitchen regions, and turned in at the first door on their right.
From its situation Dickson calculated that the room lay on the
seaward side of the House next to the verandah. The light was bad,
for the two windows were partially shuttered, but it had plainly
been a smoking-room, for there were pipe-racks by the hearth, and on
the walls a number of old school and college photographs, a couple of
oars with emblazoned names, and a variety of stags' and roebucks'
heads. There was no fire in the grate, but a small oil-stove burned
inside the fender. In a stiff-backed chair sat an elderly woman,
who seemed to feel the cold, for she was muffled to the neck in a
fur coat. Beside her, so that the late afternoon light caught her
face and head, stood a girl.

Dickson's first impression was of a tall child. The pose,
startled and wild and yet curiously stiff and self-conscious, was
that of a child striving to remember a forgotten lesson. One hand
clutched a handkerchief, the other was closing and unclosing on a
knob of the chair back. She was staring at Dougal, who stood like a
gnome in the centre of the floor. "Here's the gentlemen I was
tellin' ye about," was his introduction, but her eyes did not
move.

Then Heritage stepped forward. "We have met before,
Mademoiselle," he said. "Do you remember Easter in 1918--in the
house in the Trinita dei Monte?"

The girl looked at him.

"I do not remember," she said slowly.

"But I was the English officer who had the apartments on the
floor below you. I saw you every morning. You spoke to me
sometimes."

"You are a soldier?" she asked, with a new note in her
voice.

"I was then--till the war finished."

"And now? Why have you come here?"

"To offer you help if you need it. If not, to ask your pardon
and go away."

The shrouded figure in the chair burst suddenly into rapid
hysterical talk in some foreign tongue which Dickson suspected of
being French. Heritage replied in the same language, and the girl
joined in with sharp questions. Then the Poet turned to Dickson.

"This is my friend. If you will trust us we will do our best
to help you."

The eyes rested on Dickson's face, and he realized that he was
in the presence of something the like of which he had never met in
his life before. It was a loveliness greater than he had imagined
was permitted by the Almighty to His creatures. The little face was
more square than oval, with a low broad brow and proud exquisite
eyebrows. The eyes were of a colour which he could never decide on;
afterwards he used to allege obscurely that they were the colour of
everything in Spring. There was a delicate pallor in the cheeks,
and the face bore signs of suffering and care, possibly even of
hunger; but for all that there was youth there, eternal and
triumphant! Not youth such as he had known it, but youth with all
history behind it, youth with centuries of command in its blood and
the world's treasures of beauty and pride in its ancestry. Strange,
he thought, that a thing so fine should be so masterful. He felt
abashed in every inch of him.

As the eyes rested on him their sorrowfulness seemed to be
shot with humour. A ghost of a smile lurked there, to which Dickson
promptly responded. He grinned and bowed.

"Very pleased to meet you, Mem. I'm Mr. McCunn from
Glasgow."

"You don't even know my name," she said.

"We don't," said Heritage.

"They call me Saskia. This," nodding to the chair, "is my
cousin Eugenie....We are in very great trouble. But why should I
tell you? I do not know you. You cannot help me."

"We can try," said Heritage. "Part of your trouble we know
already through that boy. You are imprisoned in this place by
scoundrels. We are here to help you to get out. We want to ask no
questions- -only to do what you bid us."

"You are not strong enough," she said sadly. "A young man--an
old man--and a little boy. There are many against us, and any
moment there may be more."

It was Dougal's turn to break in, "There's Lean and Spittal
and Dobson and four tinklers in the Dean--that's seven; but there's
us three and five more Gorbals Die-hards--that's eight."

There was something in the boy's truculent courage that
cheered her.

"I wonder," she said, and her eyes fell on each in turn.

Dickson felt impelled to intervene.

"I think this is a perfectly simple business. Here's a lady
shut up in this house against her will by a wheen blagyirds. This
is a free country and the law doesn't permit that. My advice is for
one of us to inform the police at Auchenlochan and get Dobson and
his friends took up and the lady set free to do what she likes.
That is, if these folks are really molesting her, which is not yet
quite clear to my mind."

"Alas! It is not so simple as that," she said. "I dare not
invoke your English law, for perhaps in the eyes of that law I am a
thief."

"Deary me, that's a bad business," said the startled
Dickson.

The two women talked together in some strange tongue, and the
elder appeared to be pleading and the younger objecting. Then
Saskia seemed to come to a decision.

"I will tell you all," and she looked straight at Heritage.
"I do not think you would be cruel or false, for you have honourable
faces.. ..Listen, then. I am a Russian, and for two years have been
an exile. I will not now speak of my house, for it is no more, or
how I escaped, for it is the common tale of all of us. I have seen
things more terrible than any dream and yet lived, but I have paid a
price for such experience. First I went to Italy where there were
friends, and I wished only to have peace among kindly people. About
poverty I do not care, for, to us, who have lost all the great
things, the want of bread is a little matter. But peace was
forbidden me, for I learned that we Russians had to win back our
fatherland again, and that the weakest must work in that cause. So
I was set my task, and it was very hard....There were others still
hidden in Russia which must be brought to a safe place. In that
work I was ordered to share."

She spoke in almost perfect English, with a certain foreign
precision. Suddenly she changed to French, and talked rapidly to
Heritage.

"She has told me about her family," he said, turning to
Dickson. "It is among the greatest in Russia, the very greatest
after the throne." Dickson could only stare.

"Our enemies soon discovered me," she went on. "Oh, but they
are very clever, these enemies, and they have all the criminals of
the world to aid them. Here you do not understand what they are.
You good people in England think they are well-meaning dreamers who
are forced into violence by the persecution of Western Europe. But
you are wrong. Some honest fools there are among them, but the
power--the true power--lies with madmen and degenerates, and they
have for allies the special devil that dwells in each country. That
is why they cast their nets as wide as mankind."

She shivered, and for a second her face wore a look which
Dickson never forgot, the look of one who has looked over the edge
of life into the outer dark.

"There were certain jewels of great price which were about to
be turned into guns and armies for our enemies. These our people
recovered, and the charge of them was laid on me. Who would
suspect, they said, a foolish girl? But our enemies were very
clever, and soon the hunt was cried against me. They tried to rob
me of them, but they failed, for I too had become clever. Then they
asked for the help of the law--first in Italy and then in France.
Ah, it was subtly done. Respectable bourgeois, who hated the
Bolsheviki but had bought long ago the bonds of my country, desired
to be repaid their debts out of the property of the Russian crown
which might be found in the West. But behind them were the Jews,
and behind the Jews our unsleeping enemies. Once I was enmeshed in
the law I would be safe for them, and presently they would find the
hiding-place of the treasure, and while the bourgeois were clamouring
in the courts it would be safe in their pockets. So I fled. For
months I have been fleeing and hiding. They have tried to kidnap me
many times, and once they have tried to kill me, but I, too, have
become clever--oh, so clever. And I have learned not to fear."

This simple recital affected Dickson's honest soul with the
liveliest indignation. "Sich doings!" he exclaimed, and he could
not forbear from whispering to Heritage an extract from that
gentleman's conversation the first night at Kirkmichael. "We needn't
imitate all their methods, but they've got hold of the right end of
the stick. They seek truth and reality." The reply from the Poet
was an angry shrug.

"Why and how did you come here?" he asked.

"I always meant to come to England, for I thought it the
sanest place in a mad world. Also it is a good country to hide in,
for it is apart from Europe, and your police, as I thought, do not
permit evil men to be their own law. But especially I had a friend,
a Scottish gentleman, whom I knew in the days when we Russians were
still a nation. I saw him again in Italy, and since he was kind and
brave I told him some part of my troubles. He was called Quentin
Kennedy, and now he is dead. He told me that in Scotland he had a
lonely chateau, where I could hide secretly and safely, and against
the day when I might be hard-pressed he gave me a letter to his
steward, bidding him welcome me as a guest when I made application.
At that time I did not think I would need such sanctuary, but a
month ago the need became urgent, for the hunt in France was very
close on me. So I sent a message to the steward as Captain Kennedy
told me."

"What is his name?" Heritage asked.

She spelt it, "Monsieur Loudon--L-O-U-D-O-N in the town of
Auchenlochan."

"The factor," said Dickson, "And what then?"

"Some spy must have found me out. I had a letter from this
Loudon bidding me come to Auchenlochan. There I found no steward to
receive me, but another letter saying that that night a carriage
would be in waiting to bring me here. It was midnight when we
arrived, and we were brought in by strange ways to this house, with
no light but a single candle. Here we were welcomed indeed, but by
an enemy."

"Which?" asked Heritage. "Dobson or Lean or Spittal?"

"Dobson I do not know. Leon was there. He is no Russian, but
a Belgian who was a valet in my father's service till he joined the
Bolsheviki. Next day the Lett Spidel came, and I knew that I was in
very truth entrapped. For of all our enemies he is, save one, the
most subtle and unwearied."

Her voice had trailed off into flat weariness. Again Dickson
was reminded of a child, for her arms hung limp by her side; and her
slim figure in its odd clothes was curiously like that of a boy in a
school blazer. Another resemblance perplexed him. She had a hint
of Janet--about the mouth--Janet, that solemn little girl those
twenty years in her grave.

Heritage was wrinkling his brows. "I don't think I quite
understand. The jewels? You have them with you?"

She nodded.

"These men wanted to rob you. Why didn't they do it between
here and Auchenlochan? You had no chance to hide them on the
journey. Why did they let you come here where you were in a better
position to baffle them?"

She shook her head. "I cannot explain--except, perhaps, that
Spidel had not arrived that night, and Leon may have been waiting
instructions."

The other still looked dissatisfied. "They are either
clumsier villains than I take them to be, or there is something
deeper in the business than we understand. These jewels--are they
here?"

His tone was so sharp that she looked startled--almost
suspicious. Then she saw that in his face which reassured her. "I
have them hidden here. I have grown very skilful in hiding
things."

"Have they searched for them?"

"The first day they demanded them of me. I denied all
knowledge. Then they ransacked this house--I think they ransack it
daily, but I am too clever for them. I am not allowed to go beyond
the verandah, and when at first I disobeyed there was always one of
them in wait to force me back with a pistol behind my head. Every
morning Leon brings us food for the day--good food, but not enough,
so that Cousin Eugenie is always hungry, and each day he and Spidel
question and threaten me. This afternoon Spidel has told me that
their patience is at an end. He has given me till tomorrow at noon
to produce the jewels. If not, he says I will die."

"Mercy on us!" Dickson exclaimed.

"There will be no mercy for us," she said solemnly. "He and
his kind think as little of shedding blood as of spilling water.
But I do not think he will kill me. I think I will kill him first,
but after that I shall surely die. As for Cousin Eugenie, I do not
know."

Her level matter-of-fact tone seemed to Dickson most shocking,
for he could not treat it as mere melodrama. It carried a horrid
conviction. "We must get you out of this at once," he declared.

"I cannot leave. I will tell you why. When I came to this
country I appointed one to meet me here. He is a kinsman who knows
England well, for he fought in your army. With him by my side I
have no fear. It is altogether needful that I wait for him."

"Then there is something more which you haven't told us?"
Heritage asked.

Was there the faintest shadow of a blush on her cheek? "There
is something more," she said.

She spoke to Heritage in French, and Dickson caught the name
"Alexis" and a word which sounded like "prance." The Poet listened
eagerly and nodded. "I have heard of him," he said.

"But have you not seen him? A tall man with a yellow beard,
who bears himself proudly. Being of my mother's race he has eyes
like mine."

"That's the man she was askin' me about yesterday," said
Dougal, who had squatted on the floor.

Heritage shook his head. "We only came here last night. When
did you expect Prince--your friend."

"I hoped to find him here before me. Oh, it is his not coming
that terrifies me. I must wait and hope. But if he does not come
in time another may come before him."

"The ones already here are not all the enemies that threaten
you?"

"Indeed, no. The worst has still to come, and till I know he
is here I do not greatly fear Spidel or Leon. They receive orders
and do not give them."

Heritage ran a perplexed hand through his hair. The sunset
which had been flaming for some time in the unshuttered panes was
now passing into the dark. The girl lit a lamp after first
shuttering the rest of the windows. As she turned up the wick the
odd dusty room and its strange company were revealed more clearly,
and Dickson saw with a shock how haggard was the beautiful face. A
great pity seized him and almost conquered his timidity.

"It is very difficult to help you," Heritage was saying. "You
won't leave this place, and you won't claim the protection of the
law. You are very independent, Mademoiselle, but it can't go on for
ever. The man you fear may arrive at any moment. At any moment,
too, your treasure may by discovered."

"It is that that weighs on me," she cried. "The jewels! They
are my solemn trust, but they burden me terribly. If I were only
rid of them and knew them to be safe I should face the rest with a
braver mind."

"If you'll take my advice," said Dickson slowly, "you'll get
them deposited in a bank and take a receipt for them. A Scotch bank
is no' in a hurry to surrender a deposit without it gets the proper
authority."

Heritage brought his hands together with a smack. "That's an
idea. Will you trust us to take these things and deposit them
safely?"

For a little she was silent and her eyes were fixed on each of
the trio in turn. "I will trust you," she said at last. "I think
you will not betray me."

"By God, we won't!" said the Poet fervently. "Dogson, it's up
to you. You march off to Glasgow in double quick time and place the
stuff in your own name in your own bank. There's not a moment to
lose. D'you hear?"

"I will that." To his own surprise Dickson spoke without
hesitation. Partly it was because of his merchant's sense of
property, which made him hate the thought that miscreants should
acquire that to which they had no title; but mainly it was the
appeal in those haggard childish eyes. "But I'm not going to be
tramping the country in the night carrying a fortune and seeking for
trains that aren't there. I'll go the first thing in the
morning."

"Where are they?" Heritage asked.

"That I do not tell. But I will fetch them."

She left the room, and presently returned with three odd
little parcels wrapped in leather and tied with thongs of raw hide.
She gave them to Heritage, who held them appraisingly in his hand
and then passed them on to Dickson.

"I do not ask about their contents. We take them from you as
they are, and, please God, when the moment comes they will be
returned to you as you gave them. You trust us, Mademoiselle?"

"I trust you, for you are a soldier. Oh, and I thank you from
my heart, my friends." She held out a hand to each, which caused
Heritage to grow suddenly very red.

"I will remain in the neighbourhood to await developments," he
said. "We had better leave you now. Dougal, lead on."

Before going, he took the girl's hand again, and with a sudden
movement bent and kissed it. Dickson shook it heartily. "Cheer up,
Mem," he observed. "There's a better time coming." His last
recollection of her eyes was of a soft mistiness not far from tears.
His pouch and pipe had strange company jostling them in his pocket
as he followed the others down the ladder into the night.

Dougal insisted that they must return by the road of the
morning. "We daren't go by the Laver, for that would bring us by the
public-house. If the worst comes to the worst, and we fall in wi'
any of the deevils, they must think ye've changed your mind and come
back from Auchenlochan."

The night smelt fresh and moist as if a break in the weather
were imminent. As they scrambled along the Garple Dean a pinprick
of light below showed where the tinklers were busy by their fire.
Dickson's spirits suffered a sharp fall and he began to marvel at
his temerity. What in Heaven's name had he undertaken? To carry
very precious things, to which certainly he had no right, through
the enemy to distant Glasgow. How could he escape the notice of the
watchers? He was already suspect, and the sight of him back again
in Dalquharter would double that suspicion. He must brazen it out,
but he distrusted his powers with such tell-tale stuff in his
pockets. They might murder him anywhere on the moor road or in an
empty railway carriage. An unpleasant memory of various novels he
had read in which such things happened haunted his mind.... There
was just one consolation. This job over, he would be quit of the
whole business. And honourably quit, too, for he would have played
a manly part in a most unpleasant affair. He could retire to the
idyllic with the knowledge that he had not been wanting when Romance
called. Not a soul should ever hear of it, but he saw himself in
the future tramping green roads or sitting by his winter fireside
pleasantly retelling himself the tale.

Before they came to the Garple bridge Dougal insisted that
they should separate, remarking that "it would never do if we were
seen thegither." Heritage was despatched by a short cut over fields
to the left, which eventually, after one or two plunges into
ditches, landed him safely in Mrs. Morran's back yard. Dickson and
Dougal crossed the bridge and tramped Dalquharter-wards by the
highway. There was no sign of human life in that quiet place with
owls hooting and rabbits rustling in the undergrowth. Beyond the
woods they came in sight of the light in the back kitchen, and both
seemed to relax their watchfulness when it was most needed. Dougal
sniffed the air and looked seaward.

"It's coming on to rain," he observed. "There should be a
muckle star there, and when you can't see it it means wet weather
wi' this wind."

"What star?" Dickson asked.

"The one wi' the Irish-lukkin' name. What's that they call
it? O'Brien?" And he pointed to where the constellation of the
hunter should have been declining on the western horizon.

There was a bend of the road behind them, and suddenly round
it came a dogcart driven rapidly. Dougal slipped like a weasel into
a bush, and presently Dickson stood revealed in the glare of a lamp.
The horse was pulled up sharply and the driver called out to him.
He saw that it was Dobson the innkeeper with Leon beside him.

"Who is it?" cried the voice. "Oh, you! I thought ye were off
the day?"

Dickson rose nobly to the occasion.

"I thought myself I was. But I didn't think much of
Auchenlochan, and I took a fancy to come back and spend the last
night of my holiday with my Auntie. I'm off to Glasgow first thing
the morn's morn."

"So!" said the voice. "Queer thing I never saw ye on the
Auchenlochan road, where ye can see three mile before ye."

"I left early and took it easy along the shore."

"Did ye so? Well, good-sight to ye."

Five minutes later Dickson walked into Mrs. Morran's kitchen,
where Heritage was busy making up for a day of short provender.

"I'm for Glasgow to-morrow, Auntie Phemie," he cried. "I want
you to loan me a wee trunk with a key, and steek the door and
windows, for I've a lot to tell you."