Front matter (continued 6)

CHAPTER XXXIV

IN THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY

Now, through being over-careful with my chronicle, I have spent too much time on our conferences. But we were, indeed, at the parting of the ways, and needed all advice. On our way to Culzean we met one who told us that the Earl had gone home that day to Cassillis. Nell besought me to ride thither, for she had a request to make to the head of her house ere she went her ways back to Culzean.

So to Cassillis we rode, and at the gate encountered Robert Harburgh, dressed, as usual, in his dark, close-fitting doublet, and with his long, plain sword by his side. With him I abode while Helen went within to pay her duty and service to the Countess—who, as Nell told me afterwards, never stopped praising the ancient days when she was the Chancellor's wife, and had one of the ladies of the Court to attire her.

'Now,' she said bitterly, 'John grudges it if I take a milkmaid half-an-hour from the butter-kirning to help to arrange my hair.'

Presently the Earl came out. He showed himself well pleased and kind, as, indeed, he ever was with me—perhaps because I never asked aught of him in all my life.

'Helen, our cousin,' said he, 'desires that she may go and bide among the heather with your good mother at Kirrieoch. What think ye of that?'

I told him that I had not heard of it—that she had spoken no word to me.

'See to the matter,' he said with significance. 'I have been advised concerning Sir Thomas and his last words. And if you prove worthy, I know no reason why ye should not have the lass. But first ye must find the treasure of Kelwood or bring down her father's murderers—one of the two. And then, when that is done, I pledge you my knightly word that ye shall have both the lass and a suitable providing. Besides which, if I am in favour with the King, ye may even get a clap on the shoulder from the flat of a royal sword. But that,' said he, 'I can nocht promise ye, for with King Jamie no man's favour is siccar.'

I told him that I kenned not rightly if the lass would have me; that I never spoke a single word of love to her but what she lightlied me.

'In good time,' said the Earl, smiling and nodding. 'The lass that wants in time of stress to gang and bide with the minnie, will draw not unkindly to the son in times of ease.'

Then came Nell with a knitted shawl from the Countess to wear among the hills, for Earl John and she were kind folk enough in all that touched not the getting or spending of gear.

I asked my lord also for the company of Robert Harburgh to help me in the escorting of Nell fitly to the little tower of Kirrieoch on the side of the Minnoch water.

'Ay, ay; let him gang,' said the Earl. 'The honeymoon is by, and his wife will be the fonder of him for lying her lane till he comes hame to her again.'

So Robert Harburgh and his long sword went southward from Cassillis along with us, riding mostly with the Dominie, while I rode behind with Nell.

I told her all our plans as we went. How we must seek the treasure; and how we must, above all things, find the boy Dalrymple.

'I will go with you upon your quest,' the staunch little Dominie had said to me, when he heard of our adventure. And so it fell out that we four rode steadily to the south, till we came in the evening to my own hill-land, where the whaups cry, where the burnies go chuckling to themselves and clattering over the pebbles, and where all the folk's hearts are kindly and warm. My mother took my lass in her arms when we told her our purpose and Nell's request.

'And I will help you with the kye?' said Nell, blithely, to her.

'Ay,' answered my mother. 'Ye will help with the drinking of the milk, and that will e'en bring some roses back into your cheeks, my puir bit shilpit lassie.'

And though there passed not a look by the common between us when we parted, I think my mother shrewdly jaloosed what were my hopes.

Thus we left them standing by the loan dyke, the two old folk and Nell with her yellow hair a-blowing in the midst. And I, that knew not whether I might ever see them again, waved a hand, and resolved to return with a name and a barony at the least; or, if my lot were perverse, to leave my bones in some stricken field.

It is hard for a man to part from a lass—and in especial from one to whom he dares not make love as he has done to others, all because those others have told upon him, till he fears the ridicule of his real love more than rapier thrusts. Right bitterly did I regret that I had done my by-courtings so near home; because, on my very life I dared not venture a sweet word to Nell Kennedy for fear of her saying, 'That is even what you said to Kate Allison, the Grieve's lass.' Or as it might, 'Keep to your customs. It is not your usual time yet by a quarter-of-an-hour to put your arm about our waists.'

Now this is monstrously unfair to any man, who, after all, is compelled to conduct his affairs with some sort of rule and plan of attack. I was a fool—well do I know it. I ought to have gone further afield than the Grieve's house. I am sure there are plenty of lasses in Carrick fairer to look upon than Kate Allison, though I am free to admit that I thought not so at the time.

So as we went back it was arranged that Robert Harburgh should ride to the woodland country about Auchendrayne, and there, from his headquarters at Cassillis, keep his eye upon the doings of the Mures, because his person was unknown to them of Auchendrayne's household.

The Dominie and I undertook the more uncertain work, but we had made our plans and were not to be put off. The neighbourhood of the Benane was well known to all that trafficked about the town of Girvan. It was a dangerous and an ill-famed place, and many innocent people had very mysteriously lost their lives there, or at least disappeared to return no more. In order, therefore, that we might be more free to pursue our wanderings, we left our horses behind us. Indeed, Dom Nicholas was even now cropping the sweet grasses on the side of the Minnoch water, with my father to show him where they grew thickest and my mother to give him oats between times, till the brave beast was in some danger of being overfed.

As we neared Girvan, we came into a country of the bitterest partizans of the Bargany folk. Here dwelt James Bannatyne of Chapeldonnan, one of the great intimates of John Mure, and much beholden to him. Here also was Girvan Mains, over the possession of which much of the black blood had arisen. So, for our safety, we gave ourselves out to be plain merchants travelling to Stranrawer in order to get a passage over to Ireland.

When we came to the farmhouses where we were to stay for the night, we always asked of the good man, in the hearing of his wife, concerning the state of the country. Was it peaceful? Were the bloody feuds staunched, and could honest men now live in peace? We heard, as was natural, a great deal of abuse of the Earl and of our faction, as the greediest and worst-intentioned rascals in the world. That from the goodman; but when the wife got her tongue started, she would tell us much that was no credit to Drummurchie and others on the side of the murderers. Soon we were fully certified that we were already in the country where Drummurchie and Cloncaird and the rest of their party were being secretly sustained by their friends. Yet we could not come at them, which perhaps was as well, seeing that my person was well known to them.

I found the little Dominie a right brave companion. When we sojourned at houses, he had a way with the bairns that kept them on the trot to do his will, and pleasured to do it—a manner also of cross-questioning the parents about their children which showed them his interest and his knowledge. Then he would most wisely and soberly advise them to see and give this lad Alec a good education, to make that one a merchant because of his cleverness with figures, and this a dominie or a clerk, because he did not give promise of being fit for anything else. It was as good as a play to hear him, and made us much thought of whereever we went.

Yet he was ready with his fighting tools also. Once when we went by Kildonan and a pack of dirty vagabonds bade us stand, what was my surprise to find that Dominie Mure having laid down his pipes and out with his blade, was already driving among them before I had got so much as my hand on the sword blade. And I am no laggard, either, with the iron, as all may know by this time. But with his great bristling fierce head and his rapier that thrust up unexpectedly from below (yet which with the length of his arm reached as far as a tall man's), the Dominie gave the rascals a fright and a wound or two also, which started them at the run. Even then he followed, thrusting at them behind till they shouted amain, and took across the fields to escape the pricking of his merciless weapon. And ever as they ran he cried, '"Halt and deliver!" did ye say? I will give you a bellyful of "Halt and deliver!"'

CHAPTER XXXV

THE OGRE'S CASTLE

So being wearied with the chase we went to the nearest farm, which, as it happened, was that of Chapeldonnan. It stood quite close by the roadside. A tall, large-boned woman came to the gate with a pail of pigs' meat in her hand.

'What seek ye?' she said. 'We want nae travelling folk about Chapeldonnan.'

We told her that we were merchants going to Ireland, and that we had been attacked by a set of rascals upon the way, whom we had made flee.

'They are no that ill in this pairt o' the country. They wad only hae killed ye,' she said, as if that would have been a satisfaction to us. 'It is doon aboot the Benane that the real ill folk bide.'

I told her that killing was enough for me, and that I was puzzled to know what worse she could mean.

So with some seeming reluctance she bade us come in. The wide quadrangle of the farm buildings was defended like a fortress. The gate was spiked and barred with iron from post to post, as though it had been the gate of a fighting baron instead of the yett of a tenant, devised only to keep in the kye.

We asked civilly for the master of the house, and somewhat hastily the woman answered us,—

'The guidman's no at hame. He has been away ower by at the Craig trying to win the harvest of the solan geese and sea-parrots.'

'Your husband is tenant of the rock?' I said, for it is always worth while finding out what a man like James Bannatyne may be doing, or at least how much he thinks it advisable to tell.

'Ow ay,'she said, 'and a bonny holding it is. Gin it werena for the Ailsa cocks, the conies, and the doos, it wad be a mill-stone aboot our necks, for we have to pay sweetly for the rent o' it to my Lady of Bargany.'

'But,' said I, 'it belongs to the Earl, does it not?'

The mistress of Chapeldonnan looked pityingly at us.

'Ye are twa well-put-on men to be so ignorant. Ye maun hae been lang awa' frae this pairt o' the country no to ken that the neighbourhood is very unhealthy for the friends o' the Earl o' Cassillis to come here. Faith, the last that cam' speerin' for rent and mails in this quarter gat six inch o' cauld steel in the wame o' him!'

'And what,' said the Dominie, 'became o' him after that? Did he manage to recover?'

'Na, na. He was buried in Colmonel kirkyaird. The good man of Boghead gied him a resting-grave and a headstone. It was thought to be very kind o' him. It was Boghead himsel' that stickit him.'

'Ye see what it is to be a Christian, good wife!' said the Dominie.

'Ow ay, lad,' said the woman, placidly. 'That was generally remarked on at the time. Ye see, Boghead was aye a forgiein' man a' his days. But for a' that, it was the general opinion o' the pairish that the thing might be carried ower far, when it cam' to setting up my Lord of Cassillis's folks wi' graves and headstones!'

She continued, after a pause,—

'I hae been deevin' at our guidman to gie up the Craig, for it keeps him a deal from hame, and I aye tell him that he carries awa' mair than he brings back o' drink and victual. But he says that the rock is a maist extraordinary hungrysome place!'

'It has that name,' said I, unwarily.

She stopped and looked at me with sudden suspicion.

'What ken ye aboot the Ailsa?' she asked, looking directly at me.

'Nocht ava,' I replied, 'but a' seaside places hae the name o' making your ready for you meal of meat.'

'Hoot, no,' said Mistress Bannatyne. 'Now, there's mysel'. I canna do mair than tak' a pickin' o' meat, like a sparrow on the lip o' the swinepot. Yet Chapeldonnan is but a step frae the sea.'

She was at that moment lifting a heavy iron pot off the cleps, or iron hooks by which it hung over the fireplace in the midst of the kitchen floor.

'I hae aye been delicate a' my days, and it is an awesome thing for a woman like me to be tied to a big eater like James, that never kens when he has his fill—like a corbie howkin' at a braxy sheep till there was naething left but the horns and the tail.'

I thought we might get some information about the Benane, which might prove of some use to us when we adventured thither.

'Good wife,' said I, 'we are thinking of going by Ballantrae to the town of Stranrawer. The direct way, I hear, is by the Benane. What think ye—is the road a good one?'

'Ye are a sonsy lad,' she said, 'ye wad mak' braw pickin' for the teeth o' Sawny Bean's bairns. They wad roast your ribs fresh and fresh till they were done. Syne they would pickle your quarters for the winter. The like o' you wad be as guid as a Christmas mart to them.'

'Hoot, good wife,' said I, 'ye ken that a' this talk aboot Sawny Bean's folk is juist blethers—made to fright bairns frae gallivanting at night.'

'Ye'll maybe get news o' that gin Sawny puts his knife intil your throat. Ye hae heard o' my man. James Bannatyne is not a man easily feared, but not for the Earldom o' Cassillis wad he gang that shore road to Ballantrae his lane.'

And, indeed, there were in the countryside enough tales of wayfarers who had disappeared there, of pools of blood frozen in the morning, of traveller's footsteps that went so far and then were lost in a smother of tracks made by naked feet running every way. But I kept on with my questions. I wanted to hear the bruit of the country, and what were our chances.

While we were thus cheerfully talking, and the Dominie by whiles playing a spring upon his pipes to gain the lady's goodwill, there came in a man of a black and gruesome countenance. We knew him at once for the master of Chapeldonnan, James Bannatyne, for he came in as only a goodman comes into his own house. He was a man renowned for his great strength all over Carrick. He turned on us a lowering regard as he went clumsily by into an inner room, carrying an armful of nets. I noted that the twine had not been wet, so that his sea fishing had not come to much. But behind the door he flung down a back-load of birds—mostly solan geese and the fowl called 'the Foolish Cock of the Rock,' together with half-a-dozen 'Tammy Nories.' So I guessed that he had either been over the water to Ailsa, or desired to have it thought so.

His wife went ben the room to him. We could hear the sulky giant's growling questions as to who we were, and his wife's brisk replies. Presently she came out looking a little dashed.

'James has come in raither tired,' she said, 'and he will need to lie down and hae a sleep.'

'In that case, mistress,' I said, 'we will e'en thank you for your kindly hospitality and take our ways.'

She followed us to the door, and I think she was wonderfully glad to get us safe away without bloodshed.

'Be sure that ye gang na south by the Benane,' she said, 'the folk that bide there are no canny.'

So we thanked her again and took our way, breathing more freely also to have left the giant behind.

We had not gone far, however, when we spied her husband hastening after us across a field. He came up with us by a turn in the road.

'We harbour no spies at Chapeldonnan,' he said, bending sullenest brows at us, 'and that I would have you know.'

'We are no spies on you nor on any well-doing man,' I said. 'We are honest merchants on our way to Stranrawer, and but called in to ask the way.'

'Ye speered ower mony questions of my wife to be honest men,' he said threateningly.

'And why,' said the Dominie, birsing up as one that is ready to quarrel, 'in this realm of Scotland may not a man without offence ask his way, from the honest wife of an honest man, so long as he soliciteth no favour more intimate?'

At this the giant made a blow at the little Dominie. He had a large cudgel in his hand, and he struck without warning, like the ill-conditioned ruffian that he was. But he fell in with the wrong man when he tried to take Dominie Mure unawares, for the little man was as gleg as a hawk, having been accustomed to watch the eyes of boys all his life, ay, and often those of lads bigger than himself. So that, long before the hulking stroke of the fellow came near him, the Dominie had sprung to the side, and was ready, with his whinger in his hand, to spit Bannatyne upon the point. For myself I did not even think it worth my while even to draw—for I had only brought my plain sword, fearing that in some of the company which on our wanderings we might have to keep, the Earl's Damascus blade might overmuch excite cupidity.

But instead I ordered the fellow away as one that has authority. It was not for Launcelot Kennedy to mix himself with a common brawling dog like Chapeldonnan.

'It wants but the tickling of a straw,' cried the little man, 'that I should spit you through, like a paddock to bait a line for geds. And but for your wife's sake, who is a civil-spoken woman by ill-fortune tied to a ruffian, I should do it.'

Then seeing that together we were overstrong for him, James Bannatyne took himself away, growling curses and threatenings as to what should happen to us before we got clear of Carrick. However, we took little heed to the empty boaster, but went our ways down into the town of Girvan.

Here it came to my mind to hire a boat and provision her as it were to go to the island of Arran. And nothing would set me till I had it done. So on the south beach we found a man cleaning just such a boat as we needed, with a half-deck on her and a little mast which would go either up or down. For three merks in silver we got the use of the boat for a month, and with her both suitable oars and sails. He was going to the haying in the parish of Colmonel, the owner said, but lest we should lose her, we must deposit with the minister or the provost of the town other thirty merks as the value of the boat, which money should again be ours when we returned to claim it. So to the provost we went, whom we found a hearty, red-faced man, a dealer in provisions and all manner of victual. Of these we took a sufficient cargo on board, and having paid down our thirty merks, early one morning we laid our course for the Isle of Arran.

But when we had gone screeving well across with a following wind, we lay to under Pladda till it was dusk, and then with a breeze shifted to our quarter we bore down on Ailsa. I knew not very well what we should find there, but I judged that we would at least come on some traces of the murderous crew, which might help us to clear up some of their secrets. For I judged that James Bannatyne did not spend his nights out of bed in order to wile a few solan geese off the rocks of Ailsa.

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE DEFENCE OF CASTLE AILSA

Now the Isle of Ailsa is little more than a great lumping crag set askew in the sea. Nevertheless, it has both landing place and pasturage, house of refuge and place of defence. The island was not new to me, for I had once upon a time gone thither out of curiosity after the matter of Barclay, Laird of Ladyland—who, in his madness, thought to make it a place of arms for the Papists in the year of the Spanish Armada, but was prevented and slain at the instance of Andrew Knox, one of the good reforming name, minister of Paisley. This last was a wonderfully clever man and accounted a moving preacher; but on this occasion he showed himself a better fighter—which upon Craig Ailsa, at least, is more to the purpose.

It was the dusk of the morning when we ran into the spit of shingle which is upon the eastern side and, watching our chance, we drew the boat ashore. The sea was chill and calm, only a little ruffled by the night wind, and the sun was already brightening the sky to the east, so that the Byne Hill and Brown Carrick stood black against it.

With great stealth and quiet we climbed up the narrow path, seeing nothing, however, save a pasturing goat that sprang away as we came near. It was eerie enough work, for the seabirds clanged around us, yammering and chunnering querulously among themselves on the main cliffs at the farther side of the isle. It grew a little lighter when we came out upon the narrow path which leads to the castle.

Suddenly the dark door of the tower loomed before us, very black and grim. I declare it was like marching up to the cannon's mouth to walk up that little flight of stairs which led to the door in the wall. Nevertheless, I clambered first, with a curious pricking down my back and a slackness about the knees. So all unscathed we entered. There was only emptiness in all the chambers. The castle had been almost wholly ruined and spoiled, for since its taking by the Protestant party, it had not been touched nor put in defence. 'Now I will bring up the provender. Keep you the castle,' said I to the little Dominie, as soon as we were certified that we were first in possession.

So I went down and made first one backload and then another of those things which we had bought at Girvan and placed in the boat. I brought up also all the ammunition for the hackbutt and the pistols. Before I had finished the sky grew grey and clear, the day breaking nobly with only a rack of cloud racing up the far side of Kilbrannan Sound to hang upon the chill shark's teeth of the mountains of Arran. Upon my return I was glad to find the castle intact, and the little man seated calmly with a book in his hand.

'Did you never so much as shut the outer door?' I asked him.

'And shut you without,' said he. 'Is it likely? Ye might have had to come along that footpad with only your limber legs to keep your tail, and Tam o' Drummurchie or Sawny Bean jumping ahint ye!'

So before we went to examine the nooks and crannies of the Craig either for enemies or treasure boxes, we resolved to put the castle into as good a state of defence as we could.

First we drew in the rough wooden steps which led to the door in the wall by which we had entered, so that only the little projections whereon the wood had rested were left to afford foothold to any besieger. Then we closed and barricaded the door, for the huge iron bolt was yet in its place and ran securely into the stone of the wall itself for quite two feet.

When the day broke fully, I went up to the turret top to look about me.

'Save us!' I cried down to the little man. 'Come hither, Dominie. Is not that our boat out there with men in her?'

The Dominie ran up and looked long and earnestly.

'Ay, deed is it that,' he made answer. 'We are trapped, Launcelot, for all our cleverness. And if these chiels be our enemies, I doubt that we are as good as dead men in the jaws of the Wolf of Drummurchie.

The men in the boat kept leaning back and looking up at the cliffs as if to get sight of something. Sometimes they went completely out of view, as it had been close into the bulk of the isle, mayhap to examine more carefully some cave or lurking-place.

'We had better look well to our priming, and set a watch,' said I. 'We shall have visitors this day at Castle Ailsa, or my name is not Launcelot Kennedy.'

But the hours passed slowly on from nine till noon before we heard a sound, or saw a living creature beside the geese and the gulls. After the boat had gone westward out of sight, we waxed weary at our posts on the top of the turret. I went down to look at the cupboards of the chambers. There I was rooting and exploring, when I heard the Dominie whispering loudly to me to run up hastily into the tower.

He told me how that a stone had come pelting against the wall, on the side towards the hill. Now the castle sits on the verge of the precipice, and only a narrow path leads to it along the cliff. But behind there is a little courtyard to landward, now mostly ruined and broken down. It was from this side, so Dominie Mure whispered to me, that the stone had come.

'Tut, man,' said I, 'you are losing your nerve with this playing of hide-and-seek. It was but a billy-goat's foot that spurned it, and so naturally it came bumming down the hill side.'

'Then,' he replied grimly, 'it was a billy-goat as big as an elephant, and it will ding over this castle into the sea, for no ordinary goat could have stirred the stone I saw; I tell you it popped over the heuch like a cannon-ball.'

But we were soon to have other company besides that of the stone.

For presently there came in sight a man walking daintily and carefully along the path which led to the door of the tower. Now he would pull wantonly at a flower, and anon he would skip a stone over the cliff—for all the world as if it were a Sabbath afternoon, and he was waiting for his lass. But I knew better, for I heard his harness clattering under his loose coat of blue.

'Where gang ye so blythe, my bonny man?' cried the Dominie suddenly from my elbow. The man started back, and set his hand beneath his cloak, but the Dominie cried,—

'Keep awa' your hand frae your hip, young man—ye may need it to preserve your balance on the footpath—and give me your attention for a wee.'

The man did as he was bid, and cast his eye aloft, where the black mouth of a hackbutt looked discouragingly down upon him.

'Your name, friend?' said the Dominie.

'I am James Carrick from the parish of Barr,' said the man at last.

'Ay, ay, slee Jamie—Drummurchie's man,' said the Dominie, with meaning. 'When the man is pooin' gowans and skytin' slate stanes, the maister is no that far awa'. Noo, James, e'en turn you aboot and gang your ways, and tell your maister that his black murder is found out, and that there are those on their way to this isle that will put the irons on his heels.'

So the man who had called himself James Carrick turned obediently about, and marched away the road he had come. Probably he had been sent for nothing more than to know if we had stolen a march upon them, and taken possession of the strength of the castle. They had our boat—there was no question of that. We were, therefore, set here with only two backloads of powder and provisions to stand a siege in a small and ruinous tower upon a barren cliff.

Nor was it long before we had news of the enemy, for as we strolled up and down the battlement walk, which as is common in such little fortalices, went round three sides of the tower—that is, round every side except that which looks inward to the cliff-edge—a number of scattering shots came from all about, but chiefly from above.

We could hear them whistling over us as we ducked our heads. We got ready our guns to fire in return so soon as a man showed; but the many bowders and rocky humps about gave the enemy great shelter, so that it was no easy thing to take aim at them. However, I did get a steady shot at an incautious leg, and on the back of the crack of the hackbutt came a great torrent of swearing, and this I took for a good sign.

All we could do was to keep the little courtyard clear, and to shoot whenever we saw a bonnet rise up or a limb carelessly exposed. But we both yearned for something more lively to put an end to our suspense.

Nor had we long to wait.

From the east side of the tower which looks to the sea, there came the sound of a loud report, a tumble of stones, and then a loud, continual, and most pitiful crying, as of a man hurt unto death. I ran up into the battlements above and set my head through a loophole. Beneath me lay a fine-looking young man, with his red bonnet fallen aside, clad in a short white coat, with doublet and hose also of red. He was unarmed so far as I could see.

'Who are you, and what brought you there?' I cried to him from the turret loop.

A massy corner-stone fallen from the castle lay on his chest, and a pile of other rocks and stones was heaped about his legs. He turned his eyes upward at me and tried twice to speak.

At last he said, with many pants and piteous groans, 'I am Allan Crosby, from Auchneil. I brought you a letter from my Lord Cassillis. I landed below and came up by the path, but when I got near I heard firing and saw the door shut. So I tried to clamber up the castle wall to cry in at the window to you, because you were my friends. And even as I climbed, the stones of the castle fell upon me, and now they are crushing the life out of me.'

'Where is the letter from my Lord?' said I.

The man cast his eyes about him as if to look for it.

'I had it in my hand just now,' he said.

I saw a scrap of parchment a little way from him, and asked if that were the letter.

'Tie it to a cord for me,' said I, 'that I may see it.'

But, by reason of his wounds, he was not able to reach it, and the stones pressed so bitterly on his breast that he could do nothing but lie and groan most waesomely.

'Oh, help me, or else end my misery—for the love of God,' he cried earnestly, 'for I am at the point of death in this agony.'

I went all round the top of the tower and looked about every way. Our enemies had retired further up the cliff, and were contenting themselves with firing an occasional shot, which fell harmless against the walls, buzzed among the battlements, or else sang past us into the sea.

I called the Dominie.

'Come to the door,' said I. 'I cannot bide still and see that poor man suffer. He says that he has come with a letter from my Lord Cassillis. It may be so. I will at least go and see. Drummurchie's thieves have gone up the face of the rock, and the wounded man cannot hurt me much, even if he were willing.'

Then the Dominie pled with me to bide where I was 'because,' said he, 'you know not whether it be not an ambush.'

'I cannot let a fellow-creature be crushed to pieces before my eyes and abide to hear his death-cries,' I answered. 'Come down and hold you the door open.'

So with that I undid the bolts and put the Dominie behind it. I set my feet upon the jutting stones on which the wooden stair usually rested, and so scrambled perilously down, holding on to the wall with my right hand the while. When I came to him the lad was lying gasping on his back with the stones edgewise on his breast. I asked him how he did. He seemed past speech, but was able to motion me round to the further side. There I stooped gently in order to raise the great block that lay upon his bosom.

I stepped carefully about and turned my body to render him my aid as tenderly as I could. But I got a sudden and terrible surprise, and though I am not one much given to fear, I own that it shook my heart. Even as I stooped over him, the fellow flung oft the stones as if they had been featherweights, leaped upon his own feet with a bended pistol in his hand, and stood in front of me, striding across the path which led back again to the castle door.

At the same moment I heard a loud shout of warning from the Dominie, that the enemy were again coming down the brae. I had no time to draw my dagger, and for greater lightness I had left my sword behind. I saw the rascal make him ready to fire at me, aiming at my heart. So I remembered a French trick of high kicking which Robert Harburgh had once taught me, for he had been in France at the schools with his master the Earl, and had learned much there besides philosophy.

So I gave the fellow my foot, shod with toe-plates, full upon his wrist, which knocked the pistol up against his chin with a stunning crash. In the next moment I leaped at his throat and overbore him, spurning him with my heel as I passed. I can remember leaping upon him with all my weight from the top of one of the very stones the traitor had pulled down upon himself.

Then I ran fleet-foot for the entrance of the castle. Others of the enemy were just coming about the corner when I reached the projecting points of stone. With my heart in my mouth I sprang up the little juts of rock. I was almost within and in safety, but I had not counted upon the swiftness and resource of my gentleman of the fallen stone. He was hard upon my heels in spite of the thundering clout he had gotten on the jaw from the pistol. But luckily my brave little friend the Dominie stood ready behind the door, and as soon as my hindmost foot was over the threshold, he set his strength to the iron handle and sent the massy oak home to its fastenings with such force that it struck the pursuer fair on the face with a stunning crash. As a stone is driven from a sling, so he fell whirling over the stair head, and, unable to stop himself, he went, gripping vainly at the rock-weeds, headlong over the cliff.

This, however, being behind the door and fully employed in securing it, we did not know at the time. But when we hurried again to the top of the tower, we saw the enemy swarming down the cliff side to render him some assistance, or it might be to recover his body.

'Ask him, when you get him, if he has another letter from my lord the Earl,' cried the Dominie after them.

'And serve him right well, the treacherous hound,' muttered the little man to himself, 'if you find him in pound pieces!'

But I said nothing, for I thought the fellow would mind the kick that I gave him.

That night Thomas of Drummurchie and all his folk removed from the cave where till now they had dwelt. They went over in our boat and in that of James Bannatyne of Chapeldonnan to the mainland, being frightened (as I guess) by our declaration that there were those coming who would deliver them to justice. And also being dismayed, as I make no doubt, by our staunch and desperate defence.

Thus were we left alone on the muckle weary rock which men call Ailsa, and which thousands of free men and women look at every day without a thought of the poor prisoned folk upon it.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE VOICE OUT OF THE NIGHT

Now, so long as provisions last, Ailsa is none such a bad sanctuary, and we might have passed the time there very well, had we possessed minds sufficiently at ease for enjoying such a hermitage. The spring was but a few yards above the castle, and it ran crystal clear into a little basin which I cut in the rock. We had enough victual to serve us for a month with the provision we had bought in Girvan, and with what I shot of the puffins or Tammy Nories, which ran in and out of their holes all day like conies in a warren.

Sometimes we would climb to the top of the crag and look long at the sea, which from there seemed like a great sheet hung upon Cantyre and Arran on the one side and upon the hills of Galloway and Carrick on the other—with Ailsa itself, on which we were sitting, in the deepest trough of it.

A few boats crept timidly about the shore, and a little ship sometimes passed by. But otherwise we had for companions only the silly guillemots that couped their tails uppermost and dived under, the fishing-gulls that dropped splash into the water, and the solan or solemne geese which, when they fell, made a bigger plunge than any, even as on the cliffs of the island their keckling and crying are the loudest.

One day the Dominie and I were sitting on the roof of all things (as the summit of Ailsa seemed to be), picking at the grasses and knuckling little stones for the idlesse which comes with summer weather, when it came in my head to rally Robert Mure, because he had a cold hearthstone and a half empty bed.

'You, a burgess and a learned man, with an official rent and a yearly charge on the burgh, yet cannot get so much as a cotter's sonsy bit lass to keep you company, and to sit, canty like Jenny and Jock, on the far side of the chimbley lug. Think shame of yourself, Dominie. Any questing lout that can persuade a tow-headed Mall of the byre to set up house with him, deserves better of his country than you. Were all of your mind, Maybole school might have none to attend it but dotards and grandmothers! And where were your craft then, Socrates?' I asked him, for just before he had been speaking to me of a certain wise man, a Greek of that name.

And at first he made a jest of the matter, as indeed I meant it.

'Never fear,' he said, 'there will always be enough fools in Ayrshire to get more. Maybole shall have its share of these.'

And indeed that hath been the repute of our town and countryside ever since Ayr water first ran over its pebbles!

Yet when I pressed the Dominie further upon the matter, he waxed thoughtful. His face, which was not naturally merry, took on a still sterner expression. Presently he put his hand within his blouse and pulled out a little string of beads, such as Catholics wear to mind them of their prayers. It was suspended about his neck. This, I own, was a great marvel to me, for the Dominie was a strong Reformer, and showed little mercy in arguing with men still inclined to the ancient opinion.

He gave the brown rosary into my hand, and I turned it curiously about. It was made of the stones of some foreign fruit, most quaintly and fantastically carven and joined together with little links of gold. Between two of the beads there was a longer portion of the chain, and upon it two rings of gold were strung.

'Once,' said the Dominie, 'there was a maid who had promised to share my hearth. One ring of these two was mine, to wear upon my finger, and one was hers. Upon the night before our marriage day we met at our place of tryst. I tried the ring upon her finger ard wished her to wear it that night. 'To-morrow will serve—it is not so far away!' she said, and slipped from my arms. Under a new-risen moon she went homeward, singing by the heads of Benane. And that was the last that these eyes ever beheld of bonny Mary Torrance—save only this necklace of beads which she wore, and the stain of her blood upon the short grass of the seashore.'

The Dominie looked long to seaward at the flashing birds that circled and clanged about our rocky isle, each tribe of them following its own orbit and keeping to its own airy sphere.

'And what happened to her?' I began, but got no further.

'Murder, most foul,' he cried, rising to his feet in his agitation, 'horrible, unheard of in any kingdom! For all about the spot where these things were found, was the trampling of many naked feet. And some of these were small and some were great. But all were naked, and the print of every foot was plain upon the sand of the shore. Each footprint had the toes of the bare feet wide and distinct. Every toe was pointed with a claw, as though the steads were those of birds. And the fearsome beast-prints went down to the sea edge, and the blood marks followed them. And that was all.' Then the Dominie fell silent, and I also, for though Ayrshire was full of blood feuds and the quest of human life, this was a new kind of murder to me—though by all accounts it seemed not rare in the neighbourhood of Benane, for I minded the warning words of the Mistress of Chapeldonnan.

'And had she no enemies, this Mary Torrance?' I asked.

'She was but young, and of birth too lowly for feuds and fightings. Besides, who in Carrick would harm a maid going homeward from her love-tryst?'

The Dominie rose and walked away to the other side of the Rock of Ailsa, where for long he sat by himself and fingered the necklace of beads. His face was fixed, as if he were making of the rosary a very catena of hate, a receptacle of dark imaginings and vengeful vows. Scarcely could I recognise my quaint and friendly Dominie.

It was that night, as the blackness grew grey towards the morn, that I yielded my watch upon the roof of the little Castle of Ailsa to the Dominie. Too long I had paced the battlements, listening to the confused and belated yawping and crying of the sea-birds upon the ledges, and to the mysterious night sounds of the isle. For I began to hear and to see all manner of uncouth things, that have no existence except on the borderlands of sleep.

The Dominie said no word, good or bad, but drew his cloak about him and sat down on the rampart. I bade him good morning, but he never answered me a word; and so I left him, for I judged that his thought was bitter, and that the tale he had told me of Mary Torrance lay blackly upon him.

Yet, when I went below, it was not with me as on other mornings. I lay down upon the plaids and composed me to sleep. Yet I remained broad awake, which was an unaccountable thing for me, who have been all my life a great sleeper. I lay and thought of my friend, sitting gloomy and silent above in the greyness of morn, till my own meditations grew eerie and comfortless. Often and often I started upon my elbow with the intention of going to him. As often I lay down again, because I had no excuse, and also (as it seemed to me) he had not desired my company.

But once, as I lifted me up on my elbow, I seemed to hear a shrill crying as it had been out of the sea, 'Launcelot—Launcelot Kennedy!' it said. And the crying was most like a woman's voice. My very blood chilled within me, for the tale of the lass murdered upon the morn of her marriage day was yet in my mind. And I thought of naught less than that her uneasy spirit was now come to visit the man, aged and withered, who sat up there waiting and watching for her coming. Yet why it should cry my name passed my comprehension.

It was, therefore, small wonder that I listened long, lying there among the plaids upon the floor. But the night wind soughed and sobbed through the narrow wicket window, and there was no further noise. Thinking that I had dreamed, I laid my head upon the hard pillow and composed me to sleep, but even then I caught as it had been the regular beat of a boat's oars upon the rullocks. And anon I heard my name cried twice and thrice, 'Launcelot Kennedy! Launcelot Kennedy! Launcelot Kennedy!' Whereat, with a thrill of horror, I rose, cast the wrappings from me, and, with my naked sword in my hand, I went up to the roof of the castle.

The Dominie was sitting with his face turned seaward. He heard me come behind him. Without turning he put out his hand.

'Did you hear it too?' he said. 'Go below. That which shall come is not for your eyes to see!'

'But I heard a woman call my name!' I said. 'I heard it twice and thrice, plain as I hear you speak!'

'Nay,' he said, 'not your name—mine!'

And once more we listened together. As for me, I strained my eyes into the darkness so that they ached and were ready to behold anything. I gazed out directly towards the sea, from which the sounds had come; but the Dominie looked along the path which led precariously between the wall of the isle above and the precipice below.

Thus we watched as it seemed for hours and hours.

Suddenly I heard him draw in his breath with a gasping sound, like that which a man gives when he finds himself unexpectedly in ice-cold water. The twilight of the morning had come a little, and as I looked over his shoulder, lo! there seemed to me as it had been a maid in white coming along the path. I felt my heart stop beating, and I, too, gazed rigidly, for it seemed to me to be Nell Kennedy, coming towards us, robed like an angel.

'She is dead!' I thought. 'Mayhap the clawed things out of the sea have devoured her, even as they took Mary Torrance!'

But I heard the Dominie say under his breath, 'It is she! It is she!'

For in the moment of terror, when the soul is unmanned, everyone hears with his own ears and sees with his own eyes, according to his own heart's fantasy.

But the figure came ever closer to us, stepping daintily and surely in the dim light. Again I heard the voice which had spoken to me from the sea, and at the sound my very bones quaked within me.

'Launcelot—Launcelot Kennedy!' it said.

And for a long moment the figure stood still as if waiting for an answer. But my voice was shut dumbly within me. The Dominie stood up.

'Art thou the spirit of Mary Torrance, or a deceiving fiend of hell that has taken her shape? Answer me, or I fire!'

And the Dominie held out his pistol to the white-sheeted ghost, which even then appeared to me a mightily vain thing, for how can a spirit fear these things which are only deadly to flesh and bone?

'I have come to see Launcelot Kennedy,' answered the voice, and it appeared awful and terrible to me beyond the power of words. I could not so much as fix my mind on a prayer, though I knew several well enough. 'I have come to seek Launce Kennedy. Is he within?' said the voice.

'What would you with him? He is no concern of yours,' said the Dominie.

'I ken that,' said the voice. 'Nevertheless, I have come to seek him. I greet you well, Dominie Mure. Will you open and let Helen Kennedy within?'

And with that the light came clearer. The veil of the fantasies of that fearful night fell like a loosened bandage from my eyes. And lo! there at the tower's foot was my dear quipsome lass, Nell Kennedy, in her own proper body, and I knew her for good, sound flesh and blood. Nor could I now tell how I had so deceived myself. But one thing I resolved—that I should not reveal my terror to her, for very certainly she would laugh at me!

But the Dominie was too firmly fixed in his thought. I saw him grip his pistol and lean over the parapet. It seemed that he could not even believe the seeing of his eyes.

'Come not nearer,' he cried in a wild voice, 'for well do I know that you are a fiend of the breed of the sea demons, whatsoever you may pretend. I will try a bullet of holy silver upon you.'

But I threw myself upon him and held his arm.

'It is but our own Nell Kennedy,' I said. 'What frights you, Dominie?'

For I resolved to make a virtue of my courage. And, indeed, as I came to myself first, and had done no open foolishness, I thought I might as well take all the credit which was due to me. 'See you not that it is only Helen Kennedy of Culzean?' I repeated, reasoning with him.

'And what seeks she with you?' said he, still struggling in my grasp. 'I tell you it is a prodigy, and bodes us no good,' he persisted.

'That I cannot tell,' said I. 'I had thought her safe upon the moors with my mother. But I will go down and open the door to her.'

So when I had run down the stairs of the small keep and set the bolt wide, lo, there upon the step was Nell Kennedy, her face dimpled with smiles, albeit somewhat pale also with the morning light and the strangeness of her adventure.

I held out my hand to her. Never had I been so moved with any meeting.

'Nell!' I said, and could say no more.

'Ay, Launce—just Nell!' she said. And she came in without taking my hand. But for all that she was not abashed nor shame-faced. But she remained as direct and simple in her demeanour as she had been about Culzean, in the old days before sorrow fell upon the house, and, indeed, upon us all.

'Take me up the stairs to the Dominie,' she said. And I took her hand and kept it tightly as we went upwards. But I tried after no greater favours at that time, for I knew that her mood leaned not towards the desires of a lover.

'Ah, Dominie,' said Nell, when she reached the top, 'this Ailsa is a strange place to keep school in. Yet I warrant you that geese are not more numerous here than they were in Maybole!'

But the Dominie could only gaze at her, thus daffing with him, so fixed had he been in his fantasy. Then when he was somewhat come to himself, we waited expectantly for Nell to reveal her errand and to relate her adventure, and she did not keep us long waiting.

'You must instantly leave Ailsa and come back with me,' she said. 'My sister Marjorie is lost from Auchendrayne, and we three must find her. I fear that the Mures have done her a mischief, being afraid of the things that she might reveal.'

'How knew you of that, Nelly?' I asked, for, indeed, it was a thing I could make no guess at myself.

'It was one morning at Kirrieoch,' said Nell, 'as we were bringing in the kye out of the green pastures by the waterside, that a messenger rode up with a letter from Marjorie. She asked me to meet her at Culzean and to bring you and any other faithful men whom I could trust along with me. And thus the letter ended: '"For gin I once win clear out of Auchendrayne, we have them all in the hollow of our hand, I have found him that carried the letter."'

'She means the letter to John Mure that took your father to the tryst of death,' I said.

The Dominie seemed to awake at the words.

'That will be young William Dalrymple she has fallen on with,' he cried, in much excitement.

I rose, and hastened down to put our belongings together, which were scattered about the castle. As soon as I returned Nell went on with her tale.

'Then because I knew not where you were,' she said, 'I was in much distress. But your father donned his war graith and rode with me to the house of Culzean, where he yet abides. As for me, I could noways rest, so I set myself to trace you. And here I have found you. Pray God we may find our Marjorie as safely!'

'But how did you manage to trace us?' I asked, for the Dominie and I thought that we had well hidden our tracks.

'Oh, I got the kindly side of the goodwife of Chapeldonnan,' said Nell, lightly. And when I heard that, I did not wonder any more, for she could get the kindly side of anyone, if so she chose. Because Nell Kennedy, in spite of her taunting and teasing, had ever a coaxing, winsome way with her which was vastly taking.

Then we fell to making our plans. It would not do for us to be seen leaving the Craig by day, for our position was plainly in view of keen eyes along all the Girvan shore and at Chapeldonnan or Girvanmains as well. And worse enemies than these might put out a dozen boats to intercept us, or simply lie in wait to take us as we landed. Besides, all this day and part of the night there befel a storm which lashed the waves to white foam about our abode.

With more than a woman's ordinary forethought in adventure, Nell had left her boat in a cove to the right of the landing-place. And indeed I, that somewhat prided myself upon my wisdom, had not taken as great precautions myself—which, among other things, was the cause of our present position on the Craig. So we three spent all the day in cheerful talk, thinking that so soon as we could find Marjorie, we should come to the end of our perplexities, and have the guilty in our power. But in this we spoke without knowledge of the manifold shifts and stratagems of our arch enemy.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

A RESCUE FROM THE SEA

While we thus waited and planned, Nell told us how that she had remained at Culzean till there seemed no more hope of Marjorie's coming. Then there arrived a lass of the Cochranes who had been Marjorie's tiring maid at Auchendrayne. From her Nell learned how, after a fierce and bitter scene with the elder Mure, Marjorie had fled from Auchendrayne none knew whither, escaping all their toils and passing their inner and outer guard under silence of night. Then so soon as she had heard this, fearing all evil to her sister, Nell set out to find me—believing that, in the absence of any hope of help from her brothers, I might aid her to find her sister and to clear some of the ever deepening mysteries.

It was the dusk of an evening, sweet and debonnair, when we left the castle which had been so long our home, and descended the perilous steeps to the foot of Ailsa. Here we found Nell's boat safe in its cove, and immediately we pushed out, having placed therein all our weapons and belongings. Nell sat in the stern, and the Dominie and I took the oars. The storm of the night and morning had abated, and there was now no more than an oily swell upon the water.

There was little talk between us as we went, for we felt that our lives were in our hands and that we might be only running into greater perils. I supposed that the Dominie was thinking of the love he had lost by black, unnatural murder, on that dangerous shore to which we were making our way. We kept well to the south of Girvan, because I had twice gone there on errands which did not tend to make us favourites with the Bargany Kennedies and their supporters, of whom the townsfolk were mostly composed. Besides, I remembered the word of the rascal whom I had held at my mercy in the house of Mistress Allison, the Grieve's wife at Culzean. 'The treasure of Kelwood is in the cave of Sawny Bean on the shore of Bennanbrack over against Benerard.' And this, though not a clear direction, pointed to some promontory south of Girvan and north of Ballantrae.

And though the discovery of my master's death was, I trust, first in my mind, I need not deny that I was also mindful of the treasure for which so much had been adventured first and last.

It was a high tide and a calm sea when we got over into the loom of the cliffs. We had a making wind and the tide was with us, so that we had been able to set the sail part of the way—for a little mast which would carry a lug sail lay snugly under the thwarts of the boat.

The Dominie, who in his rambling youth had followed the sea, both steered and managed the sheet as we drew nearer the shore, while I lay over the bow and kept a look-out ahead. We steered towards a light which went wavering along the top of the rocks, for we opined that it must be some shepherd wandering with a lantern to look for a lost sheep. Now it dipped into clefts, now it mounted to the summit of the crags, and anon it was lost again behind the screes and tumbled cliffs of the coast.

Suddenly from high above us, where we had last seen the light, we heard sounds as of pain and despair—a woman's cry in her extremity—not weeping or beseeching, but crying only, being, as it seemed, utterly in distress.

''Tis our Marjorie! I ken her voice!' cried Nell, and we all strained our eyes upwards to the dark heuchs. The lantern had come to a standstill almost directly above us.

The Dominie silently took down the mast and let it rest in the bottom of the boat. Our speed slackened till we floated without motion on the gently heaving water. I continued to peer into the gloom. Yet how Marjorie Kennedy could have come to be in danger upon the shore of Benane was far beyond my comprehending at that time.

'Marjorie! Sister Marjorie!' cried Nell, as loudly as she could. And almost as she spoke I saw something white descending towards us from the cliff, like a poised bird that closes its pinions and dives into the water. The smitten waters sprang up white not twenty feet from our bows.

I stood erect on the stern, scarce knowing what might hap, yet to be ready for anything, balancing on both feet for a spring. And as soon as I had a glimpse of something white which rose from the black water, I sprang towards it ere it had time to sink again. For Nell was with me in the boat, and it was my opportunity to let her see that Launce Kennedy did not do all his deeds standing thread-dry on the solid land. I declare, so much was I affected and worked upon by her crying to her sister, that had it been Sawny Bean himself I had grappled with him there in the salt water.

But it was a braver weight and shape that I held in my arm—even the slim form of a woman. I felt a thrill run through me when I found that her arms had been tied closely behind her back both at wrist and elbow. Nevertheless, I gripped the cords which confined her, and struck out for the boat, which I saw black like a rock above me.

It was no more than a minute that I supported the girl in the water, but to me it seemed to be a year, for I was hill born, and had learned the swimming since I came in my youth to Culzean. And this never makes a strong nor yet a long swimmer like the shore-bred boy, who has been half in and half out of the tide all day long every summer season since he could walk.

But the Dominie speedily brought the boat about, for indeed there was little way on her at anyrate. In a moment more his strong hands and long fingers were lifting Marjorie Kennedy on board, and laying her, all wet as she was, in the arms of her sister Nell.

Then he gave me a hand over the bow, and we cowered low in the boat, letting her drift inward with the tide till we were close under the loom of the land and in the very darkest of the shadow. We knew well that they who had tied Marjorie's hands would be on the look-out for her rescuers. So on the black water we lay and waited.

Nor had we long to wait, for in a short time voices echoed here and there among the rocks, and the lantern, with others which we had not previously seen, appeared far down near the edge of the sea. At the same time, from the other direction, came the noise of oars roughly thrown into a boat and the clambering of men over the side. Then we were, indeed, in sore jeopardy, for the wind had died to nothing under the land, and the grey sea lay outside the shadow of the cliffs with quite enough light upon it to trace us by, if we rowed out in that direction.

And all the while Marjorie lay silent in her sister's arms. I had cut the cords and chafed her hands as well as I could, but still she did not speak.

The pursuers closed rapidly upon us from both sides, and ere we could think of a plan, we saw the boats pushing out with torches held at their prows by the hands of dark and stalwart men. And then the Dominie and I looked to our pistols and swords, resolving, if it came to the sharp pinch, to make a good fight for it. For when the two boats came together they could not choose but find us.

CHAPTER XXXIX

THE CLEFT IN THE ROCK

'Let us get in nearer to the land,' said the Dominie; ''tis the sole chance that remains to us.'

So seizing each of us an oar, the sea being perfectly calm and a full tide lapsing as smoothly upon the cliffs as the water in a tub wherein good wives wash their duds, we risked the matter and rowed in closer to the rock. We sought if by good chance there might be found some inlet where we could land, or some cave which might conceal us from the cruel men who were seeking our lives.

Nor was our adventuring in vain, for as we cautiously advanced into the blackness, the wall of the cliff seemed to retire before us, so that the prow of the boat actually appeared to push it steadily back. A denser darkness, a very night of Egypt, surrounded us. Gradually the noise of the pursuers dulled, sank, and died away. We lost sight of the grey, uneasy plain of the sea behind us, and continued to advance through a long water passage walled with rock, the sides of which we could sometimes feel with our hands and sometimes fail to touch with our oars. This I took at the time to be a marvellous dispensation of Providence on our behalf, as without doubt it was. But now we know that all that shoreward country, owing to the abundance of soft stone by the seaside, is honeycombed with caves, so that it was well-nigh impossible to miss at least one of these in every half mile of cliff all about the Heads of Benerard. Yet that we should strike this one of all others appeared a thing worthy of admiration, as presently you shall hear, and showed the same dispensing and favourable Providence which has throughout been on the side of Culzean and against our enemies of Bargany.

Marjorie and Nell still sat together in the stern, but so dense was the dark that we could see nothing of them. The Dominie and I took our oars from the rullocks and pushed onward into the cave, hoping to come in time to some wider space, where we could either disembark or find a passage out upon the land above us.

And so presently we came to a place wonderful enough in itself, yet no more than the gateway to other and greater marvels.

The waves which had scarcely been visible out on the open sea ran into the cave at regular intervals, and in the narrow places formed themselves into a considerable swell of water. Before us we could hear them break with a noise like thunder upon some hidden strand or beach. This somewhat terrified us in that place of horrid darkness, for the noise was loud as is a waterfall in the time of spate, the echoing of the cave and the many contracted passages and wide halls deceiving the ear.

So our boat, being poised upon the crest of one of these smooth steeps of water which rolled onward into the cave, advanced swiftly into a more spacious cavern, where the oar could be used without touching the rock at either side. The sounds now came back to us also from high aloft, and we had the feeling of much air and a certain spacious vastness above us. Yet the imprisoning darkness, confused with the lashing of the waves, wrought a kind of invincible melancholy which weighed down all our spirits.

Presently, however, the prow of the boat took the slushy sand in a coign more retired, where the waves did not, as in other places, fall with an arching dash, but rather lapsed with a gentler wash as upon a regular beach. Being in the bow, I lost no time in leaping ashore, and in a few moments I had the boat fast to a natural pier of rock, behind which the water was quiet as in a mill pond.

Here in the darkness we helped each other out, and feeling ourselves now somewhat more safe from our enemies, we shook one another by the hand and made many congratulation on our escape, which had indeed been marvellous.

Even thus we waited for the day to reveal to us whether there were any passage by which we could ascend from the deeps of the Cimmerian pit wherein we were enclosed, without adventuring out again in our boat upon the water, where our enemies watched for us.

We drew close together upon the rocky pier, and Marjorie told us of her escape from the Auchendraynes, the strange tale of which shall hereafter be given at length in its own place. Also she confirmed the message which she had sent to her sister, that she had discovered all the wickedness and certain guilt of the Mures in the death of her father, and in many other crimes. So we saw before us in plain case their condemnation, if once we could escape from this snare and bring their iniquity to light before the King and the Council. Yet all the while it was a marvel to me how Marjorie had so completely forgotten James Mure the younger, who was her wedded husband, even though she had never rendered to him the love and duty of a wife.

But we were by no means yet won out of the wood. And, at the best, our case was not a particularly comfortable one. The Dominie and I had, indeed, provided Marjorie with such wrappings and covertures as were in our power, which we had brought with us from the isle. But we had mainly to trust to the virtues of the strong waters of France, which the Dominie always carried about with him, as well as to the mildness of the night, that she should take no harm from her fearful plunge from the cliffs into the salt water.

But it is certain that the perturbation of one's spirit at such a time is so great, that many things pass without penalty to the health which at another season might induce disease and death.

Presently we found that our boat was being left high and dry, the water ebbing swiftly away from us towards the mouth of the cave. We had, as it happened, entered at the height of the tide, and now the water was upon the turn. But this affected us little, for we judged that either it would go so far back that we might find a way of escape by clambering over the rocks out upon the land; or else, at the worst, we knew that, by waiting till the next tide, we should be able to return the way we had come. At all events, for that time at least, we thought ourselves to have outwitted our pursuers and to stand no longer in their danger.

But we were briskly to learn another way of it, for the oftenest slip is made upon the threshold of safety.

Marjorie and Nell bore themselves through all these dangers and discomforts with the greatest courage. Never had this come home to me so strongly before, for the maid's shamefacedness had died out of Marjorie Kennedy; and now she seemed wholly set with a fierce jealousy of hate to compass the punishment of her father's enemies.

The water being in this manner retired, and our boat lying high and dry upon a shelving beach, I proposed that the Dominie and myself should attempt some exploration of the place where we found ourselves—while we left Nell and her sister by the boat to make such dispositions of their cleading as would countervale the discomfort of Marjorie's rescue from death.

So the Dominie and I felt with our hands all round the wide amphitheatre which had so lately been filled with the salt water. We had no difficulty in discovering the narrow passage by which we had come, for down its narrow gullet the water was now retreating with great swiftness. But we seemed to be at the sack's end in every other way, so that we looked for nothing else but having to return to the same place, and in the same way by which we came, after our enemies had retired. So swiftly did the tide run back, that it seemed as if it might be possible for us to walk out upon our own feet. And so indeed we did, but in a very strange fashion.

For in one of my gropings I came upon a projection of the rock, which caught my foot and threw me forward upon my face. As I fell, my hands touched something like a flight of rough steps which led up from the sanded floor of the cavern. Without waiting to call out to Dominie Mure I mounted, with my heart beating fast with anticipation, and at the top I came into a narrower passage than any we had yet entered, which led me forward a long way. As I went the air felt unaccountably lighter. It smelled most like a well-fired room, dry and pleasant, so that I waited only to ascertain that the passage ended in another apartment before going back to communicate my fortunate discovery to Marjorie and Nell.

When I reached the boat I found that, by the skilful management of her sister, Marjorie had been made somewhat more comfortable, and that the Dominie on his part had discovered nothing of importance, of which I was glad, for it became me to be the leader of our expedition. So I bade him take his weapons, and with what provender we could carry upon our backs we proceeded all of us together to the rocky stairway leading to the drier inner cave.

The Dominie had as usual brought his pipes over his shoulder, from which, indeed, he refused to be parted even for a moment. And but for the fear of the noise reaching our enemies, I think that there and then he would have played us both reels and strathspeys—that is, if we had given him any encouragement, so pleased was he, and, indeed, all of us, to leave the dark cavern and oozy sand upon which we had first landed.

We were not long in ascending the stairs, and, as I had foretold, we found ourselves speedily in the warmer and drier air, like that of a habited house, which was so great a change from the dripping damp of the lower sea-cave that we rejoiced greatly, though quite unable to discover the cause.

Yet there was something—we knew not what—about the inner cavern which took us all by the throat. Indeed, we had not gone far when Marjorie Kennedy gasped for breath and said, 'Let us go back! I do not like the place!

But this I took to be no more than the dashing of her spirit by the adventures of the night, and the terrors through which, as she had already told us, she had come in the dreary and dangerous house of Auchendrayne.

For the passage broadened out into a wider hall with a firm floor of hard earth, as if it had been beaten or trampled. We had hardly been in this place longer than a few moments when a strangely persistent and pervading smell began to impress us with the deadliest loathing. It was sharp, pungent, and familiar. Yet could none of us tell whence it came, nor in what place we had smelled it before.

'I am faint unto death,' said Marjorie, leaning heavily on me. 'Let me go back, Launcelot, while I can.'

But this, for the sake of the dryness and comfort, I was not willing to do. So, stumbling now over one thing and now over another in the darkness, I made shift to find a further passage.

I chanced to put down my hand, when my foot struck something heavier and more massive than before, and, lo! to my horror, I touched the side of a wooden tub or vat. And scarce had I moved from the place where I was, before something cold and soft brushed my face, as if it had been suspended from the roof. My heart trembled, for we were plainly in a place of habitation of some unknown and terrible sort.

'Stand still where you are,' I cried to my companions. For I was afraid that they also might come against one of these obstructions, which were good evidence of others having been in this abode of horror and darkness as well as ourselves.

Immediately I set to the groping again, and went stumbling from one thing to another till I came to a branching passage which ascended away from the hall. And since here, in the roomy alcove high above the floor of the cave, there were (so far as I could find) none of the vats or other furniture which I had encountered about the sides of the greater cave, I decided to use it as a place of temporary shelter.

So I made my way back to where they were all standing close together, and I pinched the Dominie's arm in token that he was to ask no questions. Then very slowly and stealthily we felt our way to the little alcove which I had found. And as often as I stumbled against anything, I pretended to clatter some of the stuff which I carried upon my back, having laden myself with it at the boat. And so passed the matter off.

At last we came to the hiding-place which had been my latest discovery, and found that the rock was cut, as it had been, into seats all round about, while the path ascended upwards at the back yet higher into the stone, by which I judged that we had not yet come to the end of the cavern. Here in the high alcove or gallery above the main cave we accommodated ourselves, and disposed our belongings as well as we could for the darkness. The Dominie set himself to arrange them, while Nell and Marjorie lay covered up together in our plaids upon the stone bench which ran about the place, and which appeared to have been hewn out at some past time by the rude art of man. But I myself, to whom it came as natural to be stirring as to breathe, set about making a further exploration.

Now my disappointment was great when I found that we had indeed come to the limit of the cavern. Search which way I would, my hands encountered nothing but rock. Nevertheless, I continued my circuit, standing upon the stone ledge and groping above me, for it was possible that there was some fresh passage which from this alcove might lead to the outer air.

Suddenly, while I was searching with my hands at the top of the steps of stone, and, without the least warning, my finger tips fell upon something which felt colder than the stone. I touched metal—then the projection of a keyhole, then the iron corners of a chest. I ran my hand along the pattern of the metal bands which bound the lid. What wonder that my heart beat vehemently, for I knew in that moment that I had my hand upon the Treasure of Kelwood!

CHAPTER XL

THE CAVE OF DEATH

For a moment there in the darkness I stood dazed, and my head swam, for I bethought me of the Earl's words, as well as of the words of the Minister of Edinburgh, and I knew that my fate stood upon tip-toe. For here in the finding of this box lay all my life, and it might be my love also. But again another thought crossed the first, damming back and freezing the current of hot blood which surged to my heart. The caird's words in the Grieve's kitchen also came back to me, 'You will find the Treasure of Kelwood in the cave of Sawny Bean in the head of Bennanbrack over against Benerard.'

If this were so, there was little doubt but that we stood in the most instant and imminent danger of our lives. Yet I could not bring myself to leave the treasure. Doubtless I ought to have done so, and hastened our escape for the sake of the girls, Nell and Marjorie. But I thought it might be possible to convey the chest out, and so bring both our quests to an end at once—that for treasure, by the recovery of the box which had been lost and found, and then lost again upon the Red Moss, and that of vengeance, by the certain condemnation of the Auchendraynes upon Marjorie's evidence.

The next moment mighty fear took hold on me. All that I had heard since my childhood, about the unknown being who dwelled upon the shore-side of Benane and lived no man knew how, ran through my mind—his monstrous form, his cloven feet that made steads on the ground like those of a beast, his huge, hairy arms, clawed at the finger ends like the toes of a bear. I minded me of the fireside tales of travellers who had lost their way in that fastness, and who, falling into the power of his savage tribe, returned no more to kindlier places. I minded also how none might speak to the prowler by night, nor get answer from him—how every expedition against him had come to naught, because that he was protected by a power stronger than himself, warned and advised by an intelligence higher than his own. Besides, none had been able to find the abode, nor yet to enter into the secret defences where lurked the man-beast of Benerard.

And it was in this abode of death that I, Launce Kennedy, being, as I supposed, in my sane mind, had taken refuge with two women, one the dearest to me on earth. The blood ran pingling and pricking in my veins at the thought. My heart cords tightened as though it too had been shut in a box and the key turned.

Hastily I slipped down, and upon a pretext took the Dominie aside to tell him what it was that I had found.

'Ye have found our dead warrant then. I wish we had never seen your treasures and brass-banded boxes!' said he roughly, as if I had done it with intent.

And in troth I began to think he was right. But it was none of my fault, and, so far as I could see, we had been just as badly off in that place, if I had not found it at all.

After that I went ranging hither and thither among all the passages and twinings of the cave, yet never daring to go very far from the place where we were, lest I should not be able to find my way back. For it was an ill, murderous, uncanny abode, where every step that I took something strange swept across my face or slithered clammily along my cheek, making me grue to my very bone marrows. I am as fond of a nimble fetch of adventures as any man, as every believing reader of this chronicle kens well by this time, but I want no more such darkling experiences—specially now that I am become a peaceable man, and no longer so regardlessly forward as I once was, in thrusting myself into all stirs and quarrels up to the elbows.

Then in a little I went soft-footed to where Marjorie and Nell had bestowed themselves. When I told them how we had run into danger with a folly and senselessness that nothing could have excused—save the great necessity into which, by the hellish fury of our enemies, we had been driven—it was indeed cheerful to hear their words of trust and their declarations that they could abide the issue with fortitude.

So a little heartened, we made such preparations as we could—as preparing our pistols and loosening our swords. Yet all had to be done by touch, in that abode of darkness and black, un-Christian deeds.

It was silent and eerie beyond telling in the cave. We heard the water lapping further and further from us as it retreated down the long passage. Now and then we seemed to catch a gliff of the noise of human voices. But again, when we listened, it seemed naught but the wind blowing every way through the passages and halls of the cave, or the echoed wing-beatings of the uncanny things that battened in the roofs and crevices of this murtherous cavern, unfathomed, unsounded, and obscure.

But we had not long to wait ere our courage and resolution were tested to the uttermost. For presently there came to us, clearly enough, though faintly at first, the crying and baying of voices fearful and threatening. Indeed they sounded more like the insensate howling of dogs or shut-up hungry hounds in a kennel than kindly human creatures. Then there was empty silence, through which the noise came in gusts like the sudden, deadly anger of a mob. Again it came, more sharp and double-edged with fear, like the wailing of women led to unpitied doom. And the sound of this inhuman carnival, approaching, filled the cave with shuddering.

This direful crying came nearer and nearer, till we all cowered paleface together, save Marjorie alone—who, having been, as it were, in hell itself, feared not the most merciless fiends that might have broken loose therefrom. She stood a little apart from us, so far that I had not known her presence but for the draught of air that blew inward, which carried her light robe towards me, so that its texture touched my face, and I was aware of the old subtle fragrance which in happy days had well-nigh turned my head in the gardens of Culzean.

But Nell Kennedy stood close to me, so close that I could hear her heart beating and the little nervous sound of the clasping and the unclasping of her hands—which thing made me somewhat braver, especially when she put both her palms about my arm and gripped it convulsively to her, as the noises of the crying and howling waxed louder and nearer.

'I am vexed that I flouted you, Launce,' she whispered in my ear. 'I do not care a docken what you said to Kate Allison. After all, she is not such a truth-telling girl, nor yet by-ordinary bonny.'

I whispered to her that I cared not either, but that I was content to die for her.

'Oh, but you might have lived for me,' she moaned, 'if I had not led you into all this trouble.'

'Nay, Nell, my dear,' said I, hastily, 'speak not so. You have ever been our saviour and our best fortune hitherto, and so shall be yet.'

Then (mock us not) in the darkness of the cave we kissed each other once or twice, amorously and willingly, and the savour of it was passing sweet even when we looked for naught but death.

'Give me a dagger,' Nell said to me, and I gave mine own to her, which she put away in her bosom, as I judged, and again took my hand.

Then the horrid brabblement filled all the cave, and sounded louder and more outrageous, being heard in darkness. Suddenly, however, the murky gloom was shot through with beams of light, and a rout of savages, wild and bloody, filled the wide cave beneath us. Some of them carried rude torches, and others had various sorts of back-burdens, which they cast down in the corners. I gat a gliff of one of these, and though in battle I had often seen things grim and butcherly, my heart now sprang to my mouth, so that I had well-nigh fainted with loathing. But I commanded myself, and thrust me before Nell, who from where she sat could only see the flickering skarrow of the torches upon the roof and walls—for the place seemed now, after the former darkness of Egypt, fairly bursting with light.

Then I knew that these execrable hell-hounds must be the hideous crew who called Sawny Bean lord and master. They were of both sexes and all ages, mostly running naked, the more stalwart of them armed with knives and whingers, or with knotted pieces of tree in which a ragged stone had been thrust and tied with sinew or tags of rope. The very tottering children were striking at one another, or biting like young wolves, till the blood flowed. In the corner sat an old bleared hag, who seemed of some authority over them, for she pointed with her finger, and the uproar calmed itself a little. The shameless naked women-crew began to bestir themselves, and heaped broken driftwood upon the floor, to which presently a light was set.

Then the red climbing flame went upward. The wood smoke filled the cave, acrid and tickling, which, getting into our throats, might have worked us infinite danger, had it not been that the clamour of the savages was so great that it never stilled for a moment. But in time we became accustomed to the reek, and it disturbed us not.

More by luck than good guiding, the place where we sat was, as I have said, favourably situate for seeing without being seen—being a kind of natural balcony or chamber in the wall, like a swallow's nest plastered under the eaves of a barn. We learned afterwards that it was a place forbidden by Sawny Bean, the head of the clan, and so kept sacred for himself when it should please him to retire thither for his ease and pleasure, with whomsoever he would of his unholy crew. And to this no doubt we owed our safety, for the young impish boys roamed everywhere else, specially swarming and yelling about our boat, which they had just discovered. I noted, also, that when any of these came in the way of the men, he was knocked down incontinent with a hand, a knife, or a stick, as was most convenient. Sometimes the lad would lie a minute or two where he had been struck, then up again, and to the playing and disport he fell, as though nothing had happened.

All this was horrid enough, but that was not the worst of it, and I own that I hesitate to write that which I saw. Yet, for the sake of the truth, tell I must and will. The cavern was very high in the midst, but at the sides not so high—rather like the sloping roof of an attic which slants quickly down from the rooftree. But that which took my eye amid the smoke were certain vague shapes, as it had been of the limbs of human beings, shrunk and blackened, which hung in rows on either side of the cave. At first it seemed that my eyes must certainly deceive me, for the reek drifted hither and thither, and made the rheum flow from them with its bitterness. But after a little study of these wall adornments, I could make nothing else of it, than that these poor relics, which hung in rows from the roof of the cave like hams and black puddings set to dry in the smoke, were indeed no other than the parched arms and legs of men and women who had once walked the upper earth—but who by misfortune had fallen into the power of this hideous, inconceivable gang of monstrous man-eaters. Then the true interpretation of all the tales that went floating about the countryside, and which I had hitherto deemed wholly vain and fantastical, burst upon me.

But there was that nearer to me which smote me down like a blow taking a man at unawares. As I stood up to look, gripping nervously at my sword and peering over, there came a gust off the sea, roaring up the passages of the cavern. For with the moon the wind had risen without. The fire on the floor flickered upward and filled the place with light. I felt something touch my cheek. Speedily I turned, and, lo! it was a little babe's hand that swung by a cord. The wind had caught it, so light it was, and it had rubbed my cheek. By the Lord, it was enough and more than enough. I sank down and the spirit within me became water because of that soft, sliding little hand. Had the naked devils come on to me then, I declare I had not found power to lift my hand against them, nor so much as to set a finger to the latch of a pistol.

But in a little while I was strengthened, for now, as though I had never seen her before, I saw the true face of the brave lass Nell Kennedy. And it is passing sweet, even in the presence of death, to see the eyes of the beloved for the first time after declared and unashamed love has come into them. She never took her sad, steadfast regard from my face, and, as I say, I was infinitely strengthened thereby.

I could also mark Marjorie Kennedy. And since she stood erect, I knew that she had seen all the blasting horrors I had witnessed—except, perhaps, the babe's hand a-swing by its cord. Yet there was no blanching of her face. Rather, she stood and eyed the scene with a calm and assured countenance, like to a stake-kissing martyr ere the flames are lit.