<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></SPAN>CHAPTER XV</h2>
<p class="center">THE GORBALS DIE-HARDS GO INTO ACTION</p>
<p>We left Mr. McCunn, full of aches but desperately
resolute in spirit, hobbling by the
Auchenlochan road into the village of Dalquharter.
His goal was Mrs. Morran's hen-house, which was
Thomas Yownie's <i>poste de commandement</i>. The
rain had come on again, and, though in other
weather there would have been a slow twilight, already
the shadow of night had the world in its grip.
The sea even from the high ground was invisible,
and all to westward and windward was a ragged
screen of dark cloud. It was foul weather for foul
deeds.</p>
<p>Thomas Yownie was not in the hen-house, but in
Mrs. Morran's kitchen, and with him were the pug-faced
boy known as Old Bill, and the sturdy figure
of Peter Paterson. But the floor was held by the
hostess. She still wore her big boots, her petticoats
were still kilted, and round her venerable head in
lieu of a bonnet was drawn a tartan shawl.</p>
<p>"Eh, Dickson, but I'm blithe to see ye. And,
puir man, ye've been sair mishandled. This is the
awfu'est Sabbath day that ever you and me pit in.
I hope it'll be forgiven us.... Whaur's the young
leddy?"</p>
<p>"Dougal was saying she was in the House with
Sir Archibald and the men from the Mains."<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_287" id="Page_287"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"Wae's me!" Mrs. Morran keened. "And what
kind o' place is yon for her? Thae laddies tell me
there's boatfu's o' scoondrels landit at the Garplefit.
They'll try the auld Tower, but they'll no' wait
there when they find it toom, and they'll be inside
the Hoose in a jiffy and awa' wi' the puir lassie.
Sirs, it maunna be. Ye're lippenin' to the polis, but
in a' my days I never kenned the polis in time. We
maun be up and daein' oorsels. Oh, if I could get
a haud o' that red-heided Dougal...."</p>
<p>As she spoke, there came on the wind the dull
reverberation of an explosion.</p>
<p>"Keep us, what's that?" she cried.</p>
<p>"It's dinnymite," said Peter Paterson.</p>
<p>"That's the end o' the auld Tower," observed
Thomas Yownie in his quiet even voice. "And it's
likely the end o' the man Heritage."</p>
<p>"Lord peety us!" the old woman wailed. "And
us standin' here like stookies and no' liftin' a hand.
Awa' wi' ye, laddies, and dae something. Awa' you
too, Dickson, or I'll tak' the road mysel'."</p>
<p>"I've got orders," said the Chief of Staff, "no' to
move till the sityation's clear. Napoleon's up at the
Tower and Jaikie in the policies. I maun wait on
their reports."</p>
<p>For a moment Mrs. Morran's attention was distracted
by Dickson, who suddenly felt very faint and
sat down heavily on a kitchen chair. "Man, ye're
as white as a dish-clout," she exclaimed with compunction.
"Ye're fair wore out, and ye'll have had
nae meat sin' your breakfast. See, and I'll get ye
a cup o' tea."<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_288" id="Page_288"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>She proved to be in the right, for as soon as
Dickson had swallowed some mouthfuls of her
strong scalding brew the colour came back to his
cheeks, and he announced that he felt better. "Ye'll
fortify it wi' a dram," she told him, and produced
a black bottle from her cupboard. "My father aye
said that guid whiskey and het tea keepit the doctor's
gig oot o' the close."</p>
<p>The back door opened and Napoleon entered, his
thin shanks blue with cold. He saluted and made
his report in a voice shrill with excitement.</p>
<p>"The Tower has fallen. They've blown in the
big door, and the feck o' them's inside."</p>
<p>"And Mr. Heritage?" was Dickson's anxious
inquiry.</p>
<p>"When I last saw him he was up at a windy,
shootin'. I think he's gotten on to the roof. I
wouldna wonder but the place is on fire."</p>
<p>"Here, this is awful," Dickson groaned. "We
can't let Mr. Heritage be killed that way. What
strength is the enemy?"</p>
<p>"I counted twenty-seven, and there's stragglers
comin' up from the boats."</p>
<p>"And there's me and you five laddies here, and
Dougal and the others shut up in the House." He
stopped in sheer despair. It was a fix from which
the most enlightened business mind showed no
escape. Prudence, inventiveness were no longer
in question; only some desperate course of violence.</p>
<p>"We must create a diversion," he said. "I'm for
the Tower, and you laddies must come with me.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_289" id="Page_289"></SPAN></span>
We'll maybe see a chance. Oh, but I wish I had
my wee pistol."</p>
<p>"If ye're gaun there, Dickson, I'm comin' wi' ye,"
Mrs. Morran announced.</p>
<p>Her words revealed to Dickson the preposterousness
of the whole situation, and for all his anxiety
he laughed. "Five laddies, a middle-aged man
and an auld wife," he cried. "Dod, it's pretty
hopeless. It's like the thing in the Bible about the
weak things of the world trying to confound the
strong."</p>
<p>"The Bible's whiles richt," Mrs. Morran answered
drily. "Come on, for there's no time to
lose."</p>
<p>The door opened again to admit the figure of
Wee Jaikie. There were no tears in his eyes, and
his face was very white.</p>
<p>"They're a' round the Hoose," he croaked. "I
was up a tree forenent the verandy and seen them.
The lassie ran oot and cried on them from the top
o' the brae, and they a' turned and hunted her back.
Gosh, but it was a near thing. I seen the Captain
sklimmin' the wall, and a muckle man took the lassie
and flung her up the ladder. They got inside just
in time and steekit the door, and now the whole
pack is roarin' round the Hoose seekin' a road in.
They'll no' be long over the job, neither."</p>
<p>"What about Mr. Heritage?"</p>
<p>"They're no' heedin' about him any more. The
auld Tower's bleezin'."</p>
<p>"Worse and worse," said Dickson. "If the
police don't come in the next ten minutes, they'll be<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_290" id="Page_290"></SPAN></span>
away with the Princess. They've beaten all
Dougal's plans, and it's a straight fight with odds
of six to one. It's not possible."</p>
<p>Mrs. Morran for the first time seemed to lose
hope. "Eh, the puir lassie!" she wailed, and sinking
on a chair covered her face with her shawl.</p>
<p>"Laddies, can you no' think of a plan?" asked
Dickson, his voice flat with despair.</p>
<p>Then Thomas Yownie spoke. So far he had
been silent, but under his tangled thatch of hair, his
mind had been busy. Jaikie's report seemed to
bring him to a decision.</p>
<p>"It's gey dark," he said, "and it's gettin' darker."</p>
<p>There was that in his voice which promised
something, and Dickson listened.</p>
<p>"The enemy's mostly foreigners, but Dobson's
there and I think he's a kind of guide to them.
Dobson's feared of the polis, and if we can terrify
Dobson he'll terrify the rest."</p>
<p>"Ay, but where are the police?"</p>
<p>"They're no' here yet, but they're comin'. The
fear o' them is aye in Dobson's mind. If he thinks
the polis has arrived, he'll put the wind up the lot....
<i>We</i> maun be the polis."</p>
<p>Dickson could only stare while the Chief of Staff
unfolded his scheme. I do not know to whom the
Muse of History will give the credit of the tactics
of "infiltration"—whether to Ludendorff or von
Hutier or some other proud captain of Germany,
or to Foch, who revised and perfected them. But
I know that the same notion was at this moment of
crisis conceived by Thomas Yownie, whom no<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_291" id="Page_291"></SPAN></span>
parents acknowledged, who slept usually in a coal
cellar, and who had picked up his education among
Gorbals closes and along the wharves of Clyde.</p>
<p>"It's gettin' dark," he said, "and the enemy are
that busy tryin' to break into the Hoose that they'll
no' be thinkin' o' their rear. The five o' us Die-Hards
is grand at dodgin' and keepin' out of sight,
and what hinders us to get in among them, so that
they'll hear us but never see us? We're used to the
ways o' the polis, and can imitate them fine. Forbye
we've all got our whistles, which are the same as a
bobbie's birl, and Old Bill and Peter are grand at
copyin' a man's voice. Since the Captain is shut
up in the Hoose, the command falls to me, and
that's my plan."</p>
<p>With a piece of chalk he drew on the kitchen floor
a rough sketch of the environs of Huntingtower.
Peter Paterson was to move from the shrubberies
beyond the verandah, Napoleon from the stables,
Old Bill from the Tower, while Wee Jaikie and
Thomas himself were to advance as if from the
Garplefoot, so that the enemy might fear for his
communications. "As soon as one o' ye gets into
position he's to gie the patrol cry, and when each
o' ye has heard five cries, he's to advance. Begin
birlin' and roarin' afore ye get among them, and
keep it up till ye're at the Hoose wall. If they've
gotten inside, in ye go after them. I trust each
Die-Hard to use his judgment, and above all to keep
out o' sight and no let himsel' be grippit."</p>
<p>The plan, like all great tactics, was simple, and
no sooner was it expounded than it was put into<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_292" id="Page_292"></SPAN></span>
action. The Die-Hards faded out of the kitchen
like fog-wreaths, and Dickson and Mrs. Morran
were left looking at each other. They did not look
long. The bare feet of Wee Jaikie had not crossed
the threshold fifty seconds, before they were followed
by Mrs. Morran's out-of-doors boots and
Dickson's tackets. Arm in arm the two hobbled
down the back path behind the village which led
to the South Lodge. The gate was unlocked, for
the warder was busy elsewhere, and they hastened
up the avenue. Far off Dickson thought he saw
shapes fleeting across the park, which he took to be
the shock-troops of his own side, and he seemed to
hear snatches of song. Jaikie was giving tongue,
and this was what he sang:</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i4q">"Proley Tarians, arise!<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Wave the Red Flag to the skies,<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Heed nae mair the Fat Man's lees,<br/></span>
<span class="i5">Stap them doun his throat!<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Nocht to loss except our chains,<br/></span>
<span class="i4">We maun drain oor dearest veins—<br/></span>
<span class="i4">A' the worrld shall be our gains——"<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p>But he tripped over a rabbit wire and thereafter
conserved his breath.</p>
<p>The wind was so loud that no sound reached
them from the House, which blank and immense
now loomed before them. Dickson's ears were
alert for the noise of shots or the dull crash of
bombs; hearing nothing, he feared the worst, and
hurried Mrs. Morran at a pace which endangered<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_293" id="Page_293"></SPAN></span>
her life. He had no fear for himself, arguing that
his foes were seeking higher game, and judging,
too, that the main battle must be round the verandah
at the other end. The two passed the shrubbery
where the road forked, one path running to
the back door and one to the stables. They took
the latter and presently came out on the downs,
with the ravine of the Garple on their left, the
stables in front, and on the right the hollow of a
formal garden running along the west side of the
House.</p>
<p>The gale was so fierce, now that they had no
wind-break between them and the ocean, that Mrs.
Morran could wrestle with it no longer, and found
shelter in the lee of a clump of rhododendrons.
Darkness had all but fallen, and the house was a
black shadow against the dusky sky, while a confused
greyness marked the sea. The old Tower
showed a tooth of masonry; there was no glow
from it, so the fire, which Jaikie had reported, must
have died down. A whaup cried loudly, and very
eerily: then another.</p>
<p>The birds stirred up Mrs. Morran. "That's the
laddies' patrol," she gasped. "Count the cries,
Dickson."</p>
<p>Another bird wailed, this time very near. Then
there was perhaps three minutes' silence, till a
fainter wheeple came from the direction of the
Tower. "Four," said Dickson, but he waited in
vain on the fifth. He had not the acute hearing of
the boys, and could not catch the faint echo of Peter
Paterson's signal beyond the verandah. The next<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_294" id="Page_294"></SPAN></span>
he heard was a shrill whistle cutting into the wind,
and then others in rapid succession from different
quarters, and something which might have been the
hoarse shouting of angry men.</p>
<p>The Gorbals Die-Hards had gone into action.</p>
<p>Dull prose is no medium to tell of that wild adventure.
The sober sequence of the military historian
is out of place in recording deeds that knew
not sequence or sobriety. Were I a bard, I would
cast this tale in excited verse, with a lilt which would
catch the speed of the reality. I would sing of
Napoleon, not unworthy of his great namesake, who
penetrated to the very window of the ladies' bedroom,
where the framework had been driven in and
men were pouring through; of how there he made
such pandemonium with his whistle that men tumbled
back and ran about blindly seeking for guidance;
of how in the long run his pugnacity mastered
him, so that he engaged in combat with an unknown
figure and the two rolled into what had once been
a fountain. I would hymn Peter Paterson, who
across tracts of darkness engaged Old Bill in a conversation
which would have done no discredit to a
Gallogate policeman. He pretended to be making
reports and seeking orders. "We've gotten three
o' the deevils, sir. What'll we dae wi' them?" he
shouted; and back would come the reply in a slightly
more genteel voice: "Fall them to the rear. Tamson
has charge of the prisoners." Or it would be:
"They've gotten pistols, sir. What's the orders?"
and the answer would be: "Stick to your batons.
The guns are posted on the knowe, so we needn't<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_295" id="Page_295"></SPAN></span>
hurry." And over all the din there would be a
perpetual whistling and a yelling of "Hands up!"</p>
<p>I would sing, too, of Wee Jaikie, who was having
the red-letter hour of his life. His fragile form
moved like a lizard in places where no mortal could
be expected, and he varied his duties with impish
assaults upon the persons of such as came in his
way. His whistle blew in a man's ear one second
and the next yards away. Sometimes he was moved
to song, and unearthly fragments of "Class-conscious
we are" or "Proley Tarians, arise!" mingled
with the din, like the cry of seagulls in a storm. He
saw a bright light flare up within the house which
warned him not to enter, but he got as far as the
garden-room, in whose dark corners he made havoc.
Indeed he was almost too successful, for he created
panic where he went, and one or two fired blindly
at the quarter where he had last been heard. These
shots were followed by frenzied prohibitions from
Spidel and were not repeated. Presently he felt
that aimless surge of men that is the prelude to
flight, and heard Dobson's great voice roaring in
the hall. Convinced that the crisis had come, he
made his way outside, prepared to harass the rear
of any retirement. Tears now flowed down his
face, and he could not have spoken for sobs, but
he had never been so happy.</p>
<p>But chiefly would I celebrate Thomas Yownie,
for it was he who brought fear into the heart of
Dobson. He had a voice of singular compass, and
from the verandah he made it echo round the
House. The efforts of Old Bill and Peter Paterson<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_296" id="Page_296"></SPAN></span>
had been skilful indeed, but those of Thomas
Yownie were deadly. To some leader beyond he
shouted news: "Robison's just about finished wi' his
lot, and then he'll get the boats." A furious charge
upset him, and for a moment he thought he had
been discovered. But it was only Dobson rushing
to L�on, who was leading the men in the doorway.
Thomas fled to the far end of the verandah, and
again lifted up his voice. "All foreigners," he
shouted, "except the man Dobson. Ay. Ay.
Ye've got Loudon? Well done!"</p>
<p>It must have been this last performance which
broke Dobson's nerve and convinced him that the
one hope lay in a rapid retreat to the Garplefoot.
There was a tumbling of men in the doorway, a
muttering of strange tongues, and the vision of the
innkeeper shouting to L�on and Spidel. For a second
he was seen in the faint reflection that the
light in the hall cast as far as the verandah, a wild
figure urging the retreat with a pistol clapped to
the head of those who were too confused by the
hurricane of events to grasp the situation. Some
of them dropped over the wall, but most huddled
like sheep through the door on the west side,
a jumble of struggling, panic-stricken mortality.
Thomas Yownie, staggered at the success of his
tactics, yet kept his head and did his utmost to confuse
the retreat, and the triumphant shouts and
whistles of the other Die-Hards showed that they
were not unmindful of this final duty....</p>
<p>The verandah was empty, and he was just about
to enter the House, when through the west door<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_297" id="Page_297"></SPAN></span>
came a figure, breathing hard and bent apparently
on the same errand. Thomas prepared for battle,
determined that no straggler of the enemy should
now wrest from him victory, but, as the figure came
into the faint glow at the doorway, he recognised
it as Heritage. And at the same moment he heard
something which made his tense nerves relax.
Away on the right came sounds, a thud of galloping
horses on grass and the jingle of bridle reins
and the voices of men. It was the real thing at
last. It is a sad commentary on his career, but now
for the first time in his brief existence Thomas
Yownie felt charitably disposed towards the police.</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>The Poet, since we left him blaspheming on the
roof of the Tower, had been having a crowded hour
of most inglorious life. He had started to descend
at a furious pace, and his first misadventure was
that he stumbled and dropped Dickson's pistol over
the parapet. He tried to mark where it might have
fallen in the gloom below, and this lost him precious
minutes. When he slithered through the trap into
the attic room, where he had tried to hold up the
attack, he discovered that it was full of smoke which
sought in vain to escape by the narrow window.
Volumes of it were pouring up the stairs, and when
he attempted to descend he found himself choked
and blinded. He rushed gasping to the window,
filled his lungs with fresh air, and tried again, but
he got no further than the first turn, from which
he could see through the cloud red tongues of flame
in the ground room. This was solemn indeed, so<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_298" id="Page_298"></SPAN></span>
he sought another way out. He got on the roof,
for he remembered a chimney-stack, cloaked with
ivy, which was built straight from the ground, and
he thought he might climb down it.</p>
<p>He found the chimney and began the descent,
confidently, for he had once borne a good reputation
at the Montanvert and Cortina. At first all
went well, for stones stuck out at decent intervals
like the rungs of a ladder, and roots of ivy supplemented
their deficiencies. But presently he came to
a place where the masonry had crumbled into a cave,
and left a gap some twenty feet high. Below it he
could dimly see a thick mass of ivy which would
enable him to cover the further forty feet to the
ground, but at that cave he stuck most finally. All
round the lime and stone had lapsed into debris,
and he could find no safe foothold. Worse still, the
block on which he relied proved loose, and only by
a dangerous traverse did he avert disaster.</p>
<p>There he hung for a minute or two, with a cold
void in his stomach. He had always distrusted the
handiwork of man as a place to scramble on, and
now he was planted in the dark on a decomposing
wall, with an excellent chance of breaking his neck,
and with the most urgent need for haste. He could
see the windows of the House and, since he was
sheltered from the gale, he could hear the faint
sound of blows on woodwork. There was clearly
the devil to pay there, and yet here he was helplessly
stuck.... Setting his teeth, he started to ascend
again. Better the fire than this cold breakneck
emptiness.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_299" id="Page_299"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>It took him the better part of half an hour to
get back, and he passed through many moments of
acute fear. Footholds which had seemed secure
enough in the descent now proved impossible, and
more than once he had his heart in his mouth when a
rotten ivy stump or a wedge of stone gave in his
hands, and dropped dully into the pit of night, leaving
him crazily spread-eagled. When at last he
reached the top he rolled on his back and felt very
sick. Then, as he realised his safety, his impatience
revived. At all costs he would force his way out
though he should be grilled like a herring.</p>
<p>The smoke was less thick in the attic, and with
his handkerchief wet with the rain and bound across
his mouth he made a dash for the ground room. It
was as hot as a furnace, for everything inflammable
in it seemed to have caught fire, and the lumber
glowed in piles of hot ashes. But the floor and walls
were stone, and only the blazing jambs of the door
stood between him and the outer air. He had
burned himself considerably as he stumbled downwards,
and the pain drove him to a wild leap
through the broken arch, where he miscalculated the
distance, charred his shins, and brought down a red-hot
fragment of the lintel on his head. But the
thing was done, and a minute later he was rolling
like a dog in the wet bracken to cool his burns and
put out various smouldering patches on his raiment.</p>
<p>Then he started running for the House, but, confused
by the darkness, he bore too much to the
north, and came out in the side avenue from which<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_300" id="Page_300"></SPAN></span>
he and Dickson had reconnoitred on the first evening.
He saw on the right a glow in the verandah
which, as we know, was the reflection of the flare in
the hall, and he heard a babble of voices. But he
heard something more, for away on his left was the
sound which Thomas Yownie was soon to hear—the
trampling of horses. It was the police at last,
and his task was to guide them at once to the critical
point of action.... Three minutes later a figure
like a scarecrow was admonishing a bewildered
sergeant, while his hands plucked feverishly at a
horse's bridle.</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>It is time to return to Dickson in his clump of
rhododendrons. Tragically aware of his impotence
he listened to the tumult of the Die-Hards, hopeful
when it was loud, despairing when there came a
moment's lull, while Mrs. Morran like a Greek
chorus drew loudly upon her store of proverbial
philosophy and her memory of Scripture texts.
Twice he tried to reconnoitre towards the scene of
battle, but only blundered into sunken plots and pits
in the Dutch garden. Finally he squatted beside
Mrs. Morran, lit his pipe, and took a firm hold on
his patience.</p>
<p>It was not tested for long. Presently he was
aware that a change had come over the scene—that
the Die-Hards' whistles and shouts were being
drowned in another sound, the cries of panicky men.
Dobson's bellow was wafted to him. "Auntie
Phemie," he shouted, "the innkeeper's getting rattled.
Dod, I believe they're running." For at that<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_301" id="Page_301"></SPAN></span>
moment twenty paces on his left the van of the retreat
crashed through the creepers on the garden's
edge and leaped the wall that separated it from the
cliffs of the Garplefoot.</p>
<p>The old woman was on her feet.</p>
<p>"God be thankit, is't the polis?"</p>
<p>"Maybe. Maybe no'. But they're running."</p>
<p>Another bunch of men raced past, and he heard
Dobson's voice.</p>
<p>"I tell you, they're broke. Listen, it's horses.
Ay, it's the police, but it was the Die-Hards that
did the job.... Here! They mustn't escape.
Have the police had the sense to send men to the
Garplefoot?"</p>
<p>Mrs. Morran, a figure like an ancient prophetess,
with her tartan shawl lashing in the gale, clutched
him by the shoulder.</p>
<p>"Doun to the waterside and stop them. Ye'll no'
be beat by wee laddies! On wi' ye and I'll follow!
There's gaun to be a juidgment on evil-doers this
nicht."</p>
<p>Dickson needed no urging. His heart was hot
within him, and the weariness and stiffness had gone
from his limbs. He, too, tumbled over the wall,
and made for what he thought was the route by
which he had originally ascended from the stream.
As he ran he made ridiculous efforts to cry like a
whaup in the hope of summoning the Die-Hards.
One, indeed, he found—Napoleon, who had suffered
a grievous pounding in the fountain and had
only escaped by an eel-like agility which had aforetime
served him in good stead with the law of his<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_302" id="Page_302"></SPAN></span>
native city. Lucky for Dickson was the meeting,
for he had forgotten the road and would certainly
have broken his neck. Led by the Die-Hard he slid
forty feet over screes and boiler-plates, with the
gale plucking at him, found a path, lost it, and then
tumbled down a raw bank of earth to the flat ground
beside the harbour. During all this performance,
he has told me, he had no thought of fear, nor any
clear notion what he meant to do. He just wanted
to be in at the finish of the job.</p>
<p>Through the narrow entrance the gale blew as
through a funnel, and the usually placid waters of
the harbour were a mass of angry waves. Two
boats had been launched and were plunging furiously,
and on one of them a lantern dipped and fell.
By its light he could see men holding a further boat
by the shore. There was no sign of the police; he
reflected that probably they had become tangled in
the Garple Dean. The third boat was waiting for
some one.</p>
<p>Dickson—a new Ajax by the ships—divined who
this some one must be and realised his duty. It was
the leader, the arch-enemy, the man whose escape
must at all costs be stopped. Perhaps he had the
Princess with him, thus snatching victory from
apparent defeat. In any case he must be tackled,
and a fierce anxiety gripped his heart. "Aye finish
a job," he told himself, and peered up into the
darkness of the cliffs, wondering just how he should
set about it, for except in the last few days he had
never engaged in combat with a fellow-creature.</p>
<p>"When he comes, you grip his legs," he told<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_303" id="Page_303"></SPAN></span>
Napoleon, "and get him down. He'll have a pistol,
and we're done if he's on his feet."</p>
<p>There was a cry from the boats, a shout of guidance,
and the light on the water was waved madly.
"They must have good eyesight," thought Dickson,
for he could see nothing. And then suddenly he
was aware of steps in front of him, and a shape like
a man rising out of the void at his left hand.</p>
<p>In the darkness Napoleon missed his tackle, and
the full shock came on Dickson. He aimed at what
he thought was the enemy's throat, found only an
arm and was shaken off as a mastiff might shake off
a toy terrier. He made another clutch, fell, and in
falling caught his opponent's leg so that he brought
him down. The man was immensely agile, for he
was up in a second and something hot and bright
blew into Dickson's face. The pistol bullet had
passed through the collar of his faithful waterproof,
slightly singeing his neck. But it served its
purpose, for Dickson paused, gasping, to consider
where he had been hit, and before he could resume
the chase the last boat had pushed off into deep
water.</p>
<p>To be shot at from close quarters is always irritating,
and the novelty of the experience increased
Dickson's natural wrath. He fumed on the shore
like a deerhound when the stag has taken to the sea.
So hot was his blood that he would have cheerfully
assaulted the whole crew had they been within his
reach. Napoleon, who had been incapacitated for
speed by having his stomach and bare shanks savagely
trampled upon, joined him, and together they<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_304" id="Page_304"></SPAN></span>
watched the bobbing black specks as they crawled
out of the estuary into the grey spindrift which
marked the harbour mouth.</p>
<p>But as he looked the wrath died out of Dickson's
soul. For he saw that the boats had indeed sailed
on a desperate venture, and that a pursuer was on
their track more potent than his breathless middle-age.
The tide was on the ebb, and the gale was
driving the Atlantic breakers shoreward, and in the
jaws of the entrance the two waters met in an unearthly
turmoil. Above the noise of the wind came
the roar of the flooded Garple and the fret of the
harbour, and far beyond all the crashing thunder
of the conflict at the harbour mouth. Even in the
darkness, against the still faintly grey western sky,
the spume could be seen rising like waterspouts.
But it was the ear rather than the eye which made
certain presage of disaster. No boat could face the
challenge of that loud portal.</p>
<p>As Dickson struggled against the wind and stared,
his heart melted and a great awe fell upon him.
He may have wept; it is certain that he prayed.
"Poor souls, poor souls!" he repeated. "I doubt
the last hour or two has been a poor preparation
for eternity."</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>The tide next day brought the dead ashore.
Among them was a young man, different in dress
and appearance from the rest—a young man with
a noble head and a finely-cut classic face, which was
not marred like the others from pounding among
the Garple rocks. His dark hair was washed back<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_305" id="Page_305"></SPAN></span>
from his brow, and the mouth, which had been hard
in life, was now relaxed in the strange innocence of
death.</p>
<p>Dickson gazed at the body and observed that
there was a slight deformation between the
shoulders.</p>
<p>"Poor fellow," he said. "That explains a lot....
As my father used to say, cripples have a
right to be cankered."<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_306" id="Page_306"></SPAN></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
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