30 Suspense and Thriller Masterpieces. Гилберт Кит Честертон

long as it's on the Island.'

      The boy held up his hand and listened.

      'If they find out we're gone—or if Martel tells them—they can overhaul us in ten minutes with their outboard motor. Do you hear anything, Anna?'

      The fog was breaking up into alleys and strips of moonlit sea, rayed round them like the points of a star. There was no sound, not even the ripple of water or a gull's cry.

      'Come on,' Anna urged. 'We must be a quarter of the way across, and every moment counts. Take longer sweeps, Peter John, like me, and don't behave as if you were making butter-pats.'

      Then for half an hour there was no further speech. The boy had not the girl's effortless skill, and put much needless strength into his strokes, so that his shoulders soon began to ache, and his breath to shorten. The fog was oddly intermittent. Now they would be in a circle of clear sea, now back in a haze so thick that Peter John had to keep his compass on his knee, and Anna closed in on him for guidance. On one such occasion she observed that Morag had been left behind, and that she wished well to the first hand that touched her.

      'She hasn't,' was his answer. 'I flew her out of the port-hole, and tied a message to her varvel. If she doesn't kill, they may get her at the House.'

      'What message?' Anna asked.

      'Only that you and I were all right, but that they had better look out for squalls.'

      Then, when they were in one of the patches of clear air, there fell on their ears the unmistakable sound of a motor behind them.

      'Now we're for it,' said Anna. 'Heaven send the fog thickens. I was right about Martel. He told me not to go straight for the House, and that's what we've done, and they've naturally followed us… . Where are you heading for now?'

      The compass had dropped to the bottom of the kayak and Peter John had altered course to the north-west.

      'Martel said south,' said Anna.

      'That's why we are going north,' was the answer.

      Mid-channel in the small hours with an enemy close behind you is no place for argument. Anna followed obediently, the more as she saw that the new route was taking them into thicker weather. Presently on their port beam they heard the chug of a motor, but could see nothing when they screwed their heads round. Now they were back in dense fog, and the compass was brought into use again. Fear and the sense of pursuit had given both a fresh vigour, and the little craft slipped gallantly through the water. The moon was setting, and its golden light no longer transfused the sea-mist, which was becoming cold and grey. Soon it would be dawn.

      Then suddenly they got a dreadful scare. The sound of a motor broke just ahead of them. They stopped and held their breath, living by their ears, for their eyes were useless in the brume… . The noise came nearer—soon it was not twenty yards ahead—but they saw nothing. Then slowly it died away towards the west.

      'That was their second motor,' said Peter John. 'It had a different sound from the other.'

      'Who was right?' said Anna triumphantly. 'I said we should trust that Martin man, but you wouldn't. We've disobeyed both the things he told us to do, and the result is we've been jolly nearly copped.'

      After that there were no more alarms. The fog grew denser as they approached the Island, but it lifted slightly when the lap of the tide told them that they were close to shore. In this part the cliffs rose sheer from a narrow rock-strewn beach, but the children had visited the place before, and knew that a landing could be made in one of the tiny bays cut by descending streams. One such they found, where there was a half-moon of sand at the foot of a steep gully in the crags. They beached the kayaks and hid them in the cover of some big boulders. Then, taking hands, they proceeded to climb the ravine, which was stony and rough, but quite practicable. Near the top they found a recess of heath and bracken and there Anna resolutely sat down.

      'Thank God for His mercies,' she said. 'If we had only some food I'd be happy. I'm going to sleep, and you'd better do the same, Peter John, for Heaven knows what sort of a day we have before us.'

      They had no watch, and Peter John, who could usually tell the time by the sky, was out of his reckoning in those northern latitudes. They slept sound in the nook of rock, and it was only the sun on Anna's face that woke them. The time cannot have been much short of noon.

      The mist had gone, and the day was bright and hot, but the visibility was poor. Halder, of which they had a full view, was a cone of dull blue with no details showing, and the Channel between might have been a bottomless chasm, for it had none of the sheen of water.

      'It will be fine till three,' said Anna, who knew the Norland weather. 'Then I think it will blow again from the east, and blow hard.'

      She stood up to stretch her arms, but Peter John caught her skirt and pulled her back. 'We mustn't show ourselves,' he enjoined. 'Remember, they're after us. Wait here while I reconnoiter.' He crawled out of the cleft, and lay prone on a knuckle of rock from which the view was open eastward. He was back in a few seconds. 'The Tjaldar has gone,' he whispered. 'No sign of her, and I could see twenty miles of water. It must be pretty late in the day, for I'm desperately hungry. Aren't you?'

      'Perishing, but it's no good thinking about it. We'll get no food till we get home. How is that to be managed? I've been taking our bearings from Halder, and we should be about two miles north of the House. There's a track to it on the top of the cliffs, and it's mostly in sight of the Channel, but if the Tjaldar isn't there that won't matter. I expect she is somewhere on the west side of the island.'

      'What lies between the House and the west side?' Peter John asked. It was about the only part they had not explored.

      'There's the hill Snowfell. A little hill compared to the ones at Laverlaw. Then there's a boggy place which we call the Goose Flat, because the pink-foot breed there. Then there's the sea—a rather nasty bit of coast with only one decent landing… . Let's bustle and get home. If the brutes are going to attack to-day there's no reason why they shouldn't start early, for just now there's no darkness to wait for.'

      They climbed to the top of the gully where it ran out on to the tussocky cliff-top. Peter John, upon whom unpleasant forebodings had descended, insisted on keeping close in cover and showing no part of themselves on the skyline. Presently they looked down on a small tarn, much overgrown with pond-weed, which they remembered as the only lochan which had no boat. The track to the House passed its eastern edge, and by this their road lay.

      It was a terribly exposed track, and Peter John regarded it with disfavour.

      'Hadn't we better hug the cliff-edge where there's a certain amount of cover?' he suggested.

      'You may if you like, but I won't. The Skipper and his lot can't be near the place yet, and I want to be home soon. They'll all be mad with anxiety. I must loosen my bones, for I'm as stiff as a ramrod. I'll race you, Peter John.'

      She shook her yellow locks, and before the boy could prevent her was off at a gallop along the track. There was nothing for it but to follow her. He found it hard to catch her up, and the effort put other things out of his head. When they topped the rise, which overlooked the hollow where the House lay a mile distant, they were abreast and going at their best speed.

      Then the boy saw something which made him halt in his tracks, clutch at Anna's arm, and bring her slithering to the ground… . Behind a rocky knoll three hundred yards off a man was posted.

      He had not heard them, for he continued to smoke and regard the House through binoculars. They had only a back view of him, but he was plainly a sailor from the Tjaldar by his blue jersey and baggy blue serge trousers. He had some notion of landscape, for he was so placed that he must command any access to the House from the north.

      Peter, his hand on Anna's bowed head, lay for a little with his nose in a patch of lousewort. He was thinking hard and studying the environs of the House. Their only chance now was to reach it from the west or south. But west lay Snowfell, where there was scarcely cover for a tomtit. On the south the approaches were better, but to reach the south it was necessary to get to the back of Snowfell