Brothers & Sisters - John & Anna Buchan Edition (Collection of Their Greatest Works). Buchan John

open… But what’s come to Mr. Heritage?”

      Dickson to his shame had forgotten all about his friend. The Poet lay very quiet with his head on one side and his legs crooked limply. Blood trickled over his eyes from an ugly scar on his forehead. Dickson felt his heart and pulse and found them faint but regular. The man had got a swinging blow and might have a slight concussion; for the present he was unconscious.

      “All the more reason why we should flit,” said Dougal. “What d’ye say, Mr. McCunn?”

      “Flit, of course, but further than the old Tower. What’s the time?” He lifted Heritage’s wrist and saw from his watch that it was half-past three. “Mercy. It’s nearly morning. Afore we put these blagyirds away, they were conversing, at least Leon and Dobson were. They said that they expected somebody every moment, but that the car would be late. We’ve still got that Somebody to tackle. Then Leon spoke to me in the dark, thinking I was Dobson, and cursed the wind, saying it would keep the Danish brig from getting in at dawn as had been intended. D’you see what that means? The worst of the lot, the ones the ladies are in terror of, are coming by sea. Ay, and they can return by sea. We thought that the attack would be by land, and that even if they succeeded we could hang on to their heels and follow them, till we got them stopped. But that’s impossible! If they come in from the water, they can go out by the water, and there’ll never be more heard tell of the ladies or of you or me.”

      Dougal’s face was once again sunk in gloom. “What’s your plan, then?”

      “We must get the ladies away from here—away inland, far from the sea. The rest of us must stand a siege in the old Tower, so that the enemy will think we’re all there. Please God we’ll hold out long enough for help to arrive. But we mustn’t hang about here. There’s the man Dobson mentioned—he may come any second, and we want to be away first. Get the ladder, Dougal… Four of you take Mr. Heritage, and two come with me and carry the ladies’ things. It’s no’ raining, but the wind’s enough to take the wings off a seagull.”

      Dickson roused Saskia and her cousin, bidding them be ready in ten minutes. Then with the help of the Die-Hards he proceeded to transport the necessary supplies—the stove, oil, dishes, clothes and wraps; more than one journey was needed of small boys, hidden under clouds of baggage. When everything had gone he collected the keys, behind which, in various quarters of the house, three gaolers fumed impotently, and gave them to Wee Jaikie to dispose of in some secret nook. Then he led the two ladies to the verandah, the elder cross and sleepy, the younger alert at the prospect of movement.

      “Tell me again,” she said. “You have locked all the three up, and they are now the imprisoned?”

      “Well, it was the boys that, properly speaking, did the locking up.”

      “It is a great—how do you say?—a turning of the tables. Ah—what 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

       Table of Contents

      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