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+      Old House of Fear | Project Gutenberg
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77800 ***</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter hide"><img src="images/coversmall.jpg" width="450" alt=""></div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p>What was happening on Carnglass, that
+“Heap of Gray Stones” beyond the Outer
+Islands of the Hebrides? Old Lady MacAskival,
+the proprietress, had brought in a
+queer lot of people from England, and the
+hostility toward outsiders seemed to emanate
+from the frowning cliffs of Carnglass. Anyone
+who tried to land, it was rumored, might be
+fired upon. On a black night at sea, five
+MacAskivals from the neighboring island of
+Daldour had seen a pillar of flame rise near
+Askival Harbor, and had heard something
+like gunfire. And away in Michigan, old
+Duncan MacAskival, the retiring head of the
+MacAskival Iron Works, had encountered
+but stony silence in his many attempts to
+communicate with Lady MacAskival concerning
+his desire to purchase the home of
+his ancestors.</p>
+
+<p>When Duncan, for all his pains, receives
+an odd water-stained note in an unsigned,
+hastily-scrawled female hand, requesting
+“confidential agents” and “immediate action,”
+he sends young Hugh Logan, his legal
+counsel, to investigate. The adventure that
+unfolds is calculated to transform the most
+comfortable armchair into a veritable bucket
+seat of suspense.</p>
+
+<p>In his efforts to reach Carnglass and the
+Old House, where Lady MacAskival resides,
+Logan is confronted by the sinister agents
+of a puzzling conspiracy—a baleful Glasgow
+“commission agent,” a cashiered British
+officer, an Irish terrorist on the run, and,
+behind the stone mass known as the Old
+House, the chilling man with the Third Eye.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h1>old house of fear</h1>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt="title page"></div>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="titlepage">
+<p><span class="xxlarge">OLD<br>
+HOUSE<br>
+OF<br>
+FEAR</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="large">BY RUSSELL KIRK</span></p>
+
+<p>FLEET PUBLISHING CORPORATION<br>
+230 PARK AVENUE<br>
+NEW YORK 17, N.Y.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center">  COPYRIGHT © 1961<br>
+BY FLEET PUBLISHING CORPORATION<br>
+230 Park Avenue, New York 17, New York<br>
+<br>
+ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<br>
+<br>
+Protected under International Copyright Convention<br>
+and the Pan American Copyright Convention<br>
+<br>
+Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 61-7627<br>
+<br>
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center">This Gothick tale, in unblushing line<br>
+of direct descent from <i>The Castle of<br>
+Otranto</i>, I do inscribe to Abigail Fay.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+  <h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table>
+<tr><td>Chapter</td><td class="tdr">  1</td><td class="tdrw"><a href="#Page_11">      <i>11</i></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>Chapter</td><td class="tdr">  2</td><td class="tdrw"><a href="#Page_26">      <i>26</i></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>Chapter</td><td class="tdr">  3</td><td class="tdrw"><a href="#Page_42">      <i>42</i></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>Chapter</td><td class="tdr">  4</td><td class="tdrw"><a href="#Page_58">      <i>58</i></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>Chapter</td><td class="tdr">  5</td><td class="tdrw"><a href="#Page_78">      <i>78</i></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>Chapter</td><td class="tdr">  6</td><td class="tdrw"><a href="#Page_95">      <i>95</i></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>Chapter</td><td class="tdr">  7</td><td class="tdrw"><a href="#Page_111">      <i>111</i></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>Chapter</td><td class="tdr">  8</td><td class="tdrw"><a href="#Page_136">      <i>136</i></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>Chapter</td><td class="tdr">  9</td><td class="tdrw"><a href="#Page_153">      <i>153</i></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>Chapter</td><td class="tdr"> 10</td><td class="tdrw"><a href="#Page_173">      <i>173</i></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>Chapter</td><td class="tdr"> 11</td><td class="tdrw"><a href="#Page_187">      <i>187</i></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>Chapter</td><td class="tdr"> 12</td><td class="tdrw"><a href="#Page_201">      <i>201</i></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>Chapter</td><td class="tdr"> 13</td><td class="tdrw"><a href="#Page_218">      <i>218</i></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>Chapter</td><td class="tdr"> 14</td><td class="tdrw"><a href="#Page_230">      <i>230</i></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>Chapter</td><td class="tdr"> 15</td><td class="tdrw"><a href="#Page_248">      <i>248</i></a></td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="ph2">old house of fear</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>
+  <h2 class="nobreak">1</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>On this shrouded night, five men tossed in a boat off the
+island of Carnglass, where the sea never is smooth. So
+thick about them hung the fog that they could not see
+the great cliffs. Knowing, though, every rock and reef,
+they sensed where the island lay.</p>
+
+<p>Of a sudden, a tall flame shot up from Carnglass, fierce
+and unnatural. Across the swell there came to the men
+in the boat the crash of some explosion. Clinging to their
+oars, they stared silent toward the land; the oldest man
+crossed himself. The flame, surging and waving for some
+minutes, soon sank lower. In a little while they heard faint
+distant sounds, several of them, like gunshots. The
+younger men looked to the old helmsman, who pulled
+hesitantly at his white beard.</p>
+
+<p>Then he signed to them to put the boat about. Glancing
+fearfully at the distant flame as they heaved, two men
+hauled at the sail. In a minute they had changed course,
+and the fire in the night glowed at their backs as they
+pulled away from the uneasy neighborhood of silent and
+invisible Carnglass.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>Three thousand miles away, two men sat in a handsome
+office. “That’s our island,” Duncan MacAskival said: “Carnglass.”</p>
+
+<p>Across the Ordnance Survey map his thick forefinger
+moved to a ragged and twisted little outline, away at the
+verge of the Hebrides, which even upon the linen of the
+map seemed to recoil from the Atlantic combers. “The tattered
+top of a drowned mountain. And that’s the castle, by
+the bay to the West, Hugh: Old House of Fear. I like the
+names. You’re to buy Carnglass for me, cliffs and clachans
+and deer-forest and Old House and all; and price is no
+object.”</p>
+
+<p>Hugh Logan smiled at the heavy old man in the swivel
+chair. “Why send me to the Western Isles to haggle for a
+speck of rock I know nothing about, Mr. MacAskival? Why
+do you need Carnglass? And why not have a Glasgow solicitor
+do the business for you? I’d enjoy the trip, right enough,
+but I don’t need to tell you that my time costs you bona-fide
+money. Any junior clerk could buy an island for you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Look out there, Hugh.” MacAskival swung round his
+chair to the big window at the back of his teak-panelled
+office. Far below, stretching eastward for a quarter of a
+mile along the river, the stacks and coke-ovens and corrugated-iron
+roofs of MacAskival Iron Works sent up to
+heaven their smoke and flame and thunder. “Look at it all.
+I made it. And what has it given me? Two coronary fits.
+I’m told to rest. But where could a man like me fade decently?
+I’m not made for quiet desperation. There’s just
+one place, Hugh, where I might lie quiet; and that’s Carnglass.”</p>
+
+<p>MacAskival peered at his map. “I haven’t seen Carnglass,”
+he went on, “except in pictures, and no more did
+my father, or his father. But the MacAskivals came out
+of Carnglass to Nova Scotia in 1780, and they didn’t forget
+the little croft below Cailleach—that’s the sharp hill north
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>of the Old House, Hugh. Their Nova Scotia farm was
+sand and stumps, and yet not so barren as that Carnglass
+croft. Still, they’d have traded ten farms in Nova Scotia
+for that wet little plot in Carnglass. And after two strokes,
+I think I’d give the mills and all for that croft—with the
+island thrown in.”</p>
+
+<p>Logan had walked to the window, and now stood looking
+toward the glare of the coke-ovens; the flames went hotly
+up into the Michigan twilight, that April evening, and the
+incandescent masses of coal fell roaring. “Why, I think we
+might make a better bargain than that, Mr. MacAskival.
+Peat bogs and tumbledown castles go cheap nowadays.
+But why do you mean to send a man like me to buy you a
+few square miles of dripping misery?”</p>
+
+<p>“Cigar, Hugh?” MacAskival pushed a box toward him.
+“The doctor says I can have just one of these a day. Well,
+I’m not so crazy as I seem, and you know it. Under your
+veneer, you’re like me—sentimental as a sick old ironmaster.
+Don’t tell me you’ve never thought of having an island
+all to yourself. So I’d like to see you hunt this dream of
+mine; you work too hard for your age. ‘Getting and spending,
+we lay waste our powers.’ I don’t plan to bare my
+bosom to the moon in Carnglass, but it should do you good
+to play at being a pagan suckled in a creed outworn—for
+a few days, anyhow.”</p>
+
+<p>Old Duncan MacAskival was a trifle vain of his quotations
+and allusions, Logan thought. But Logan liked MacAskival,
+a self-made man, a good deal better than the
+average product of the big business-administration schools.
+It came to Logan that he, Hugh Logan, rapidly was growing
+into an old man’s young man. It had been more than a
+dozen years since he had led a battalion in Okinawa. He
+knew much of Scotland, born in Edinburgh as he had been,
+though his parents had taken him to America when he
+was nine; and he had gone back to take a degree at Edinburgh
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>University. A slackening of pace, for a week or two,
+might do no mischief. All his life he had hurried: schools,
+the university, the war, and the firm: in too much of a
+hurry, either side of the water, to laugh, to marry, or even
+to dream. “No, Mr. MacAskival,” Logan said, “I’m not the
+man to laugh at you. But you’re a canny Scot, though five
+generations removed. Do you need to pay my price just to
+draw up a deed to an island?”</p>
+
+<p>“You’re more of a Scot than I am, Hugh, though you
+look American enough nowadays.” MacAskival leant back
+in his heavy chair. “Well, yes, you’ll be worth your price
+in this business. You know something of Scots law and
+tenures. And you can wheedle odd customers; Lady MacAskival
+is one of that breed, they tell me. Here, look at
+yourself in that mirror.” MacAskival nodded toward the
+baroque glass against the teak panelling.</p>
+
+<p>Logan saw reflected a mild-seeming, amiable face—or so
+most people would call it, probably—almost unlined; still
+a young man’s face. Sometimes, when he had been a major
+of infantry, that face had tended to mislead people, and
+then Logan had to rectify impressions. He had a spare body.
+“Do I look like a fool?” he asked MacAskival.</p>
+
+<p>“Not exactly a fool, boy, but close enough. You’re innocent:
+that’s the word, Hugh. What a face to set before a
+jury—or a crazy old creature like Lady MacAskival! Anyone
+signing a contract with you assumes that he’s had the
+better of the bargain. Now I’ve tried before this to buy
+Carnglass; I’ve been at it more than three years. I’ve tried
+those Glasgow solicitors. They’re too sharp: what we need
+with Lady MacAskival is babyish innocence.”</p>
+
+<p>“All right: I’ll take my innocence to Carnglass.” Smiling,
+Logan turned back to the map on the big desk. “There
+still are MacAskivals in the island, then? And what sort of
+cousin of yours is this Lady MacAskival?”</p>
+
+<p>“Call me Duncan, Hugh,” MacAskival said, “if you’ll
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>really take up the business for me. No, there’s not a real
+MacAskival left in Carnglass, so for as I can learn. Lady
+MacAskival was born Miss Ann Robertson; her family
+owned distilleries, money-makers. It was a queer match
+when she married Colonel Sir Alastair MacAskival, Indian
+Army, who was old enough to be her father, or more. Sir
+Alastair had scars and medals, but nothing besides. Though
+he was chief of the MacAskivals—and there’s precious few
+of that little clan left—he was born in a but-and-ben in
+North Uist. I get all this from an Edinburgh genealogist.
+Sir Alastair’s great-grandfather ran through his property
+so as to keep up a fine show in London. The Great Clearance
+of Carnglass was in 1780—that’s when my people were
+booted out, you remember—and it was the work of that
+old reprobate Donald MacAskival, our Sir Alastair’s great-grandfather:
+he turned the whole island into two big farms
+and a sheepwalk, on the chance of squeezing more money
+from the rents, and told all the crofting MacAskivals to
+go to Hell or Glasgow. A few had the money for steerage
+passage to Nova Scotia, which eventually made me president
+of MacAskival Iron Works. My father was a pushing
+Scot, and so am I—and you, too, Hugh.”</p>
+
+<p>“So Ann Robertson brought money back to the MacAskivals
+more than a hundred years after the Clearance?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not simply money, Hugh, but Carnglass itself. What
+little extra Donald MacAskival contrived to wring out of
+the rents after the Great Clearance did him no good. He
+died bankrupt; and the creditors took Carnglass. His son
+sank down to being the factor for a small laird in North
+Uist, and there the family lived on, hand to mouth, until
+young Alastair went out to India and got some reputation
+for himself along the Northwest Frontier. When he was
+past forty, he sailed home to Edinburgh on leave. There
+he met Ann Robertson, and married her, and they bought
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>back Carnglass with Robertson money, and restored Old
+House of Fear.”</p>
+
+<p>Logan bent over the map to find the tiny square that
+marked the Old House. “That’s an uneasy name, Duncan,
+for an ironmaster who wants peace and quiet.”</p>
+
+<p>“But it’s a brave old house, Hugh. And the name is
+Gaelic, not English: ‘fear’ is spelled ‘fir’ or ‘fhir,’ sometimes,
+and it means ‘man.’ Old House of Fear is Old
+House of Man. Old! Why, the foundations of the oldest
+tower go back to Viking times. The Norsemen took Carnglass
+in 799 or thereabouts. But there was some sort of
+chiefs house—Picts or whatever they were—before then.
+There’s a tale in the island that Carnglass was Eden: man
+started there, and woman too, I suppose. But Carnglass
+hasn’t many living souls today. Old Donald MacAskival
+swept off five hundred people—MacAskivals and MacLeods
+and MacDonalds—in the Great Clearance, which left only
+thirty or forty souls, all named MacAskival, in the whole
+island. There still were twenty or thirty of their descendants
+living in Carnglass when Alastair and Ann bought it
+back. But Ann, Lady MacAskival, isn’t much of a hand for
+company, it seems; because when Sir Alastair died, in 1914,
+she got rid of what MacAskival crofters were left. Off they
+went to a smaller island, Daldour, three miles south across
+the Sound of Carnglass, one soaking peat-bog: if Carnglass
+was Eden, Daldour was Hell. And there they are still, for
+all I know, if they haven’t starved. Our Lady MacAskival,
+who’s over eighty now, lives alone at the Old House with
+only a handful of Lowland and English servants, according
+to what I could learn from Edinburgh. She never leaves
+Carnglass. And she doesn’t often answer letters.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then she’s not even a cousin of sorts to you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not she. The chiefs of MacAskival were of Norse stock—the
+name’s Norse, at least. And she’s from the Lowlands.
+Sir Alastair and she never had children—I gather, besides,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>there wasn’t much love lost between them—and she has no
+heirs, so far as I can find. And anyway, Hugh, the odds are
+that I’m a Pict or a Scot, not a Viking. The island people
+generally took the chief’s name for a surname, though
+they might have no blood connection. I don’t mean to set
+up for chief of Clan MacAskival: my people were fishermen
+or crofters who got themselves killed, now and then,
+in MacAskival’s feuds. Old Donald MacAskival’s father
+was out for the Pretender in ’45, which is one reason why
+Donald went so deep in debt and made the Clearance. No,
+all I want is to live in the Old House and look across the
+Sound of Carnglass, Hugh. That’s the dream that I want
+you to buy for me.”</p>
+
+<p>“The Old House is liveable, then, Duncan?”</p>
+
+<p>“Sound enough, they say, though hardly anyone but
+Lady MacAskival and her servants has seen the inside of it
+since 1914. That Edinburgh man couldn’t find any photographs
+for me later than 1914.” MacAskival pulled open a
+drawer. “There they are: not very good pictures, taken the
+year Sir Alastair died. It seems to have been foggy that day.”</p>
+
+<p>“I presume it usually is foggy in your tight little island,
+Duncan,” Logan said as he took up the half-dozen old
+prints. “There’s no inhabited island further out into the
+Atlantic.” Foggy, yes; and yet the great bulk of Old House
+of Fear loomed distinctly enough in the middle ground of
+the photograph. Carnglass meant “gray stone,” and the
+whole stern mass of masonry was of a gray that blended
+into the outcrop of living rock upon which the Old House
+was built. But the castle was not of a single period. The
+first photograph showed, on the left, an enormous square
+tower of rubble, capped by a high-pitched roof apparently
+sheathed with stone slabs. At one corner of this tower, a
+little turret stood up, perhaps covering the top of a stair
+in the thickness of the wall; Logan knew something about
+Scottish medieval architecture. To this great tower was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>joined a range of domestic buildings, three stories high,
+with dormers and crowstepped gables, also built of gray
+rubble: early seventeenth-century work, Logan thought.
+A smaller square tower closed the range. And then, abruptly
+tacked upon the right side of the smaller tower,
+commenced a mansion-house of ashlar, with small barred
+windows on the ground floor but very large windows of
+plate glass above; this was in the Scottish “baronial” style
+of Victorian times, yet carried out with some taste and not
+altogether disharmonious with the medieval and seventeenth-century
+buildings. A large door in the middle of
+this latter-day façade seemed wide enough for a carriage
+to pass through; perhaps it led to an interior courtyard.
+“All this on the right is Sir Alastair’s addition?” Logan
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said MacAskival, “and the place is bigger even
+than it looks: there’s a courtyard behind, with buildings
+all round. The Robertson distilleries paid for it. When
+Sir Alastair and his wife bought back the island, the original
+castle hadn’t been lived in for seventy years or more, and
+the roof was collapsing; but they put everything in shape
+and made the place twice as big. I suppose old Lady MacAskival
+rattles about in it now. Even though she’s one of
+the richest old women in Britain, income tax and surtax
+won’t let her keep much more than five thousand pounds’
+income; and that probably only pays the servants she has
+left, and for her food. She has trouble finding help, by the
+way, I hear. It’s not everyone who wants to scrub floors in
+Old House of Fear.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you want a white mastodon?”</p>
+
+<p>“Only to die in,” MacAskival told him, cheerfully.
+“Every man to his own humor, Hugh. I have the money
+to keep the place as long as I live; and if I stay there only
+from time to time, I can keep clear of British income tax.
+I may as well spend a few million, because the Treasury
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>and that foundation you set up for me will take all that’s
+left when I die, anyway. I might leave you the Old House,
+though: it shouldn’t take you long to acquire a taste for
+that style of living.”</p>
+
+<p>Hugh was turning over the other photographs. “One
+of the clachans: one of the two villages in Carnglass. These
+are what they call black houses, because the peat smoke
+just goes out of a hole in the roof, after circulating round
+the room—but I suppose you know all this, Hugh. Snug,
+anyway. And I don’t suppose any one of these is lived in
+now, except possibly by a gamekeeper or two. Now have
+a look at this other picture. What do you make of it?”</p>
+
+<p>In the foreground, Hugh saw a desolate graveyard, a
+low drystone wall enclosing it; some tall white monuments
+showed above the wall, and in the center stood, at a perilous
+angle, an immense Celtic cross. Beyond the monuments
+was what seemed to be an ancient chapel with a modern
+roof. And away in the background there hulked, dimly, a
+tall circular building, rather like a vast beehive.</p>
+
+<p>“It all looks like something from before the Flood,”
+Logan murmured.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, much of it is nearly as old as anything in Iona,”
+MacAskival observed. “That’s the chapel of St. Merin. She
+was stoned to death, I think, in the days of St. Columba.
+Sir Alastair restored the chapel as the family burial-vault.
+And that’s the famous Cross of Carnglass, tenth-century;
+or it would be famous, if Lady MacAskival ever let archeologists
+ashore. I don’t know what the thing beyond can
+be. Do you feel more like becoming Laird of Carnglass?”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s a strange island,” Logan said, unsmiling.</p>
+
+<p>“Yet it can’t be so strange as the rumors make it.” MacAskival
+was pleased, clearly, at having shaken Logan out
+of his commonsensical ways. “Except for a few friends from
+London, the old lady’s let nobody poke about since her
+own little clearance of 1914. They say that boats trying to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>put into the harbor have been shot at. And they say there
+are more bogles stalking through the heather than there
+are live folk. And servants who’ve left the Old House have
+told people in Oban and Glasgow that some of the London
+visitors are worse than the bogles.”</p>
+
+<p>“Scotland has no law of trespass—only acts of interdict
+after damage has been done to property.”</p>
+
+<p>“You can tell that to our old lady, Hugh. If we do get
+Carnglass, I’ll let the archeologists and the naturalists
+browse. I’m told there are rare plants and birds, and a few
+fallow deer still. Nearly the whole island has become deer-forest.
+One of the farms—the one closer to the old house—seems
+to be kept in fair order; they have Highland cattle.
+I learned that from Lagg, the factor, a Galloway man.”</p>
+
+<p>“You’ve corresponded with him, Duncan?”</p>
+
+<p>“In a unilateral way. First, three years ago, I wrote to
+Lady MacAskival herself: no answer. Then I found out
+the names of her London solicitors. I sent them an offer,
+and they wrote that they’d refer it to Lady MacAskival.
+Then silence. I wrote again. The solicitors answered that
+Lady MacAskival would give me a reply after reflection.
+More silence. I wrote to the solicitors a third time, a year
+ago yesterday, and got a letter back promptly: Lady MacAskival
+no longer did business with them, they said, and
+I should write to her factor in Carnglass, Thomas Lagg.
+I did. Ten months ago, Lagg replied that Lady MacAskival
+was indisposed, but would communicate with me after
+some interval. She never has said no—mind that, Hugh.
+Then still more silence. I wrote to Lagg three times; no
+reply. But yesterday this letter came.” From under his
+blotter MacAskival drew a sheet of cheap notepaper, which
+curled up as he tried to lay it before Logan.</p>
+
+<p>“I told you she was odd,” MacAskival said, as Logan
+smoothed the sheet. “The envelope was curled, too, and
+only partly straightened by having been in a mail-bag.”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>Also the paper seemed water-stained, and the writing in
+one corner had run badly. Though it was in a clear feminine
+hand, it appeared to have been written very hastily:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right">“3rd March</p>
+
+<p>“Duncan MacAskival, Esq.</p>
+
+<p>“Sir:</p>
+
+<p>Lady MacAskival desires to discuss with you at once the
+proposal which you have set forth. She requests that you
+come in person to Carnglass without delay, or send confidential
+agents. Immediate action is imperative.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There was no signature. “Lady MacAskival’s own
+hand?” Logan inquired.</p>
+
+<p>“Presumably,” MacAskival said. “The doctor tells me
+that I’m not quite fit for ocean cruises just now. So Hugh
+Logan, Esquire, is my confidential agent. Do you think you
+can act properly conspiratorial? I saw you as Cassius in the
+Players’ Club performance of <i>Julius Caesar</i> last month,
+you remember, Hugh; and you were the best man in the
+cast. You’d have done as well as a professional actor as you
+have with the law. Well, I’ve cabled both the old lady and
+Lagg. I’ve told them that you’ll arrive this week.”</p>
+
+<p>“This week, Duncan? Next month, at the soonest.”</p>
+
+<p>MacAskival’s thick eyebrows lowered. “Hugh Logan,
+I’ve given you a boost for your firm, now and then. I’m
+not a man who enjoys being crossed—you know that. Now
+this business is something that matters to me. Who knows
+how much longer the old lady will live? I don’t intend
+to miss this chance, after three years of trying. If you think
+anything of me, you’ll fly to Prestwick tomorrow; and it
+will do you good, Hugh: an easy bit of work in a charming
+quiet place. We can’t delay. Notice the date of that letter.
+It’s been stuck somewhere en route; and it came by ordinary
+surface mail, which took a week or more. I don’t want
+the old lady to change her mind. In my cables, I asked to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>have Lady MacAskival’s yacht—I suppose she must own
+something of the sort—put into Glasgow or Greenock for
+you. You’ve a room reserved at Todd’s Hotel, Glasgow,
+and Lady MacAskival’s people should get in touch with you
+there. Will you go, or do I have to send some fool? I want
+to use your innocence-mask, Hugh.”</p>
+
+<p>“Needs must when the devil drives,” Logan said in his
+easy way. “Give me those plane tickets. I usually humor
+madmen. Besides, I mean to find out what that beehive
+building is.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then it’s my Carnglass.” Duncan MacAskival slapped
+his hand against the desk. “Here”—he fetched out a manila
+envelope—“here’s my correspondence with the old lady’s
+people. And here’s some estimate of what the island ought
+to cost, kit and kaboodle, that I got from solicitors in London
+and Glasgow. And this, too—this will interest you,
+Hugh.”</p>
+
+<p>It was a slim old pamphlet, the covers nearly ripped
+away. “It’s rare, Hugh. Thin’s of Edinburgh found a copy
+for me. Take it along to read on your plane.” MacAskival
+opened to the title page: “A Summary History of the Islands
+of Carnglass and Daldour, in the Western Isles of
+Scotland; with some Account of the Traditionary Tales
+of those Parts. By the Reverend Samuel Balmullo, sometime
+minister of the Parish of Carnglass and Daldour.
+1818.” MacAskival was something of a book-collector. “I
+know you’re wanting dinner, Hugh,” MacAskival said,
+“and I’ll take you to the club in a minute or two, but let
+me read you a bit of this:</p>
+
+<p>“‘Among the surviving peasantry of Dalcruach village,
+on the eastern strand of Carnglass, superstition exerts an
+influence as powerful as it is debasing. In this clachan are
+said to reside four or five Sgeulaiche, or narrators of traditionary
+tales of an extravagant character, many of which
+antedate the arrival of Christian evangels from Ireland
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>in the sixth century. These relations often reflect, and
+endeavor to excuse, the lingering of heathen and impious
+practices among this ignorant folk. They speak, for example,
+of a “Third Eye,” said to appear afresh, from generation
+to generation, among the inhabitants of Carnglass, whether
+native-born or newcomers; and such a spot upon the forehead
+is said to confer amatory powers, and is regarded by
+these children of the twilight with a respect not far removed
+from veneration. To labor among parishioners
+possessed by such delusions is weary work; it has been
+said that to preach the Gospels among the Pequots or Narragansetts
+is a facile undertaking by the side of any endeavor
+to redeem from heathen error these denizens of the
+furthermost Hebrides.’”</p>
+
+<p>MacAskival turned the page. “The Reverend Samuel
+Balmullo—he was from the Lowlands, Hugh—tends to be
+long-winded, but rewarding. Balmullo seems to have been
+a sour old fellow. He was interested in the MacAskivals,
+though—give me a moment more.” Duncan MacAskival
+leafed through the pamphlet.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Indubitably,’” he read, “‘a family of the first antiquity
+in the Isles, the chiefs of MacAskival, though at
+present reduced to mean estate, are said to be a sept of the
+MacDonalds, Lords of the Isles, early parted from their
+headship by internecine conflicts. These MacAskival chiefs
+themselves maintain, however—and with some show of
+reason—that they descend from a stock older still. As their
+ancestor and the founder of their fortunes, they claim a
+certain Sigurd Askival, a Viking adventurer, who espoused
+the Pictish heiress of Carnglass, one Mary or Merin. This
+noble lady of Carnglass was a woman of remarkable beauty,
+despite her flowing mane of red hair, which the refined
+taste of modern days would disapprove. In passing, it is
+necessary to notice a tale, germane to the genealogical
+claims of MacAskival, that one Mary or Merin, saint and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>princess, at a remote period was redeemed from captivity
+to a bestial creature, described as the Gabharfear, Firgower,
+or man-goat; and that her rescuer was Sigurd Askival, a
+Norse freebooter.</p>
+
+<p>“‘One single substantial proof of the venerable lineage
+of MacAskival is reputed to have survived well into the
+last century: a set of chessmen carven from a blue stone,
+the “Table-Men of Askival,” exhibiting the weird handiwork
+of a ferocious epoch, which objects long continued
+the proudest possession of the chieftain of MacAskival.
+These, however, no longer are to be found in the Old
+House of Fear, their asserted repository; nor have they
+been transferred to the elegant New House by the quay,
+although the present proprietor made close search for the
+pieces. According to one fabrication of the aged men of
+Carnglass, these “Table-Men” were immured in a tomb
+by the last chieftain, to propitiate the Fiend. Once more
+the author apologizes to his gentle readers for this trespass
+upon their hours of serious reflection.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Old Mr. Balmullo,” Logan broke in, “seems to have
+taken a fearful joy in recording superstitions. He protests
+too much.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I think Carnglass bewitched Samuel Balmullo,
+Hugh. ‘Glamour’ is an old Scots word, you know. Watch
+out, boy, that some Hebridean witch doesn’t catch you:
+three days in Carnglass might turn the trick.”</p>
+
+<p>“Never fear, Duncan,” Logan told him, with his slow
+smile. “The Harding case comes up next month, and I’ll be
+back for it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Fear? Why, there’s no danger of any sort in Carnglass,
+I suppose.” MacAskival turned again to the window overlooking
+the plant. Now it was dark, and the coke-ovens
+glowed against the night like the flaming City of Dis.
+“Danger? Probably Carnglass is one of the few tolerably
+secure places on earth. Sometimes I think we’ll turn the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>world into one final hell of a coke-oven, Hugh. There may
+be some islands, though, left in that fire. And Carnglass,
+where man began, ought to endure when man has put an
+end to himself. I hope you can put this MacAskival back
+into his island, Hugh.”</p>
+
+<p>“You’re really going to give me dinner at your club,
+Duncan?”</p>
+
+<p>Nodding, MacAskival reached for their coats. As they
+went out of the office, he turned quizzically toward the
+younger man. “Speaking of witches and bogles and man-goats,
+Hugh, why hasn’t any woman ever captured you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Probably because there’s no romance in me,” Logan
+murmured, straightfaced.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, there’s a good deal in you, Hugh. You’re canny,
+but have a certain way with you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t forget this, though, Duncan—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="first">“‘You can grave it on his tombstone, you can cut it on his card:</div>
+<div class="verse">A young man married is a young man marred.’”</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>“Well! Hugh, you’re full of surprises. I thought only
+aged creatures like me still read Kipling. I can match you—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="first">“‘Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne,</div>
+<div class="verse">He travels fastest who travels alone.’</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Which way are you travelling, Hugh, with that innocent
+face of yours?”</p>
+
+<p>“Judging by what you tell me of the warlocks of Carnglass,
+down to Gehenna, Duncan.” Then the elevator
+came, and the club, and the dinner, and the brandy. That
+night Logan dreamed of a Carnglass Cutty Sark capering
+round Carnglass Cross. And the next night he was aboard
+the plane to Prestwick.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">2</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>On a wet and windy morning, Logan descended from the
+plane at Prestwick. Once past the immigration officers, he
+took a taxi across the moors to Glasgow. Now and then they
+sped past rows of white-harled Scots cottages, some empty
+and far gone in decay. The heather and gorse by the roadside
+called to Hugh Logan. He had walked the Pentland
+Hills, and the Lammermuirs, in his Edinburgh years—sleeping
+in the open, sometimes, when he had been a university
+student. The law-office and the courtroom seemed
+remote in time and space, as he sat in this speeding Rolls;
+and he indulged the fancy that perhaps he ought never to
+have taken the bar-examination.</p>
+
+<p>In some ways, those savage months of pushing northward
+in Okinawa had been the best of his life. The law
+was safe, and might make him famous; yet there came
+hours, now and again, when Logan thought he ought to
+have settled for a life of risk, a life lived as if every moment
+might be the last.</p>
+
+<p>The cab-driver was saying something. “A foul day, sir.
+There’ll be a storm out tae sea, sir. Spring’s late to Scotland
+this year.” The driver never had heard of Carnglass, Logan
+found. Now they were coming into the ugly sprawl of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>outlying Glasgow council-houses. And then the great grimy
+city closed upon them, and soon Logan was getting out before
+Todd’s Hotel in India Street, a building of blackened
+white granite.</p>
+
+<p>At Todd’s Hotel, the taffy-haired little receptionist in
+the tight black dress never had heard of Carnglass. Having
+left his suitcase in his room, Logan came down again to
+inquire of the manager. That civil gentleman, indeed, had
+heard of Carnglass; but he never had known anyone to go
+there. And no messages from Lady MacAskival or Mr. Lagg
+were awaiting Logan. He was not altogether surprised:
+eccentricity and delay were to be expected in that quarter;
+he suspected that he might have to make his way independently
+to the island.</p>
+
+<p>He might telephone or telegraph, though, to learn
+whether the yacht or launch had been sent for him, and
+whether he would be welcome at the Old House. It was
+no use, he soon discovered: the information operator on
+the telephone, after lengthy consultation with someone
+at the Glasgow central exchange, informed Logan that
+there was no cable laid to Carnglass, and that no way of
+sending messages to the island was known, there being no
+wireless there recorded in the exchange’s books, except by
+post. Logan called the central postoffice. Letters and parcels
+for Carnglass, it appeared, and Daldour too, were sent by
+MacBrayne’s steamer to Loch Boisdale, in South Uist,
+where they were called for as anyone from those islands, or
+their agents, might happen to put into Loch Boisdale.
+How long would an express letter take? It was impossible
+to say: it might not reach Carnglass for some days, depending
+upon whether any boat should happen to call at Loch
+Boisdale. Also, however, letters for those islands sometimes
+were left with an agent of the Carnglass factor, here in
+Glasgow, depending upon instructions from Carnglass.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>Who was this agent of the factor? That information the
+postal authorities were not authorized to give out.</p>
+
+<p>But Logan was a patient man. After lunch, he returned
+to his room and dressed in a heavy suit that had been made
+for him during his university years: of indestructible Harris
+tweed, the suit still fitted tolerably well. Rain was coming
+down heavily now, so this suit was made for the climate.
+He had with him a thorn stick, a memento also of Edinburgh
+days; it might be useful for hill-walking in Carnglass,
+should there be time for that. The little receptionist, who
+smiled fondly upon Logan, recommended a travel-agent
+in Argyle Street; so Logan took a cab there.</p>
+
+<p>Before entering the door of Moore Brothers, Travel
+Agents, Ltd., Founded 1887, he stopped at a shop adjacent
+and bought an oilskin cape, which probably would be the
+thing to wear in Carnglass; he had it sent to Todd’s Hotel.
+Then he went up to the counter in Moore’s, where an
+eager youth—with a manner the British call “smarmy”—proceeded
+to set his hand on a pile of tour-folders.</p>
+
+<p>But the eager youth had no notion of how a gentleman
+might find his way to Carnglass. He had special de luxe
+tours to Iona and Skye to offer; these were much better-known
+islands than Carnglass, he told the gentleman. No
+one ever went to Carnglass. Logan asked for the manager.</p>
+
+<p>This old man with steel spectacles at the end of his nose
+could suggest only that the gentleman take MacBrayne’s
+steamer to Loch Boisdale. From South Uist, drifters and
+trawlers sometimes coasted off Daldour; there was no harbour
+in Daldour, but he had heard that the islanders—“verra
+queer folk, sir”—sometimes launched a boat and
+came alongside a drifter. He did not know how anyone
+contrived to live in Daldour; it was Ultima Thule. As for
+Carnglass, he had been told landing never was permitted.
+Oh, the gentleman was invited? An American? Then no
+doubt it would be possible. Perhaps the people in Daldour
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>could take him across the sound in their boat. The manager
+would be glad to sell the American gentleman a first-class
+steamer ticket to Loch Boisdale, but he could do no
+more. And a first-class railway ticket from Glasgow to
+Oban: that was where one boarded MacBrayne’s steamers.
+This month, ordinarily, there were plane flights three times
+a week to South Uist; but the weather had been so wretched
+for the past week that flights had been cancelled, and it
+might be two or three or four days before they could
+resume.</p>
+
+<p>Logan bought his railway and steamer tickets. As he
+turned to go, the manager had an afterthought. “One
+moment, sir. Meg, d’ye mind the card that man left? The
+man that spoke with me concerning Carnglass?” Aye, Meg—a
+stocky red-faced lass in her teens—minded it; she put it
+bashfully into the young American gentleman’s hand.
+“Aye, sir, I had near forgot,” the manager said, “but this
+man came in a month gone and said that should any gentleman
+inquire after Carnglass, he might put him in the way
+of a passage.”</p>
+
+<p>It was a soiled card with crumpled corners, cheaply
+printed, and it read, “James Dowie, Commission Agent.
+5 Mutto’s Wynd, Gallowgate.”</p>
+
+<p>“How far is Gallowgate?” Logan asked.</p>
+
+<p>The old manager drew in his lower lip and then protruded
+it meditatively. “Why, sir, the Gallowgate’s far
+above the Tron. And it’s late in the day. Would tomorrow
+do as well, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” said Logan, “I’m usually in a hurry. Surely a taxi
+could take me there in ten minutes?”</p>
+
+<p>The manager fumbled with his spectacles. “Between
+ourselves, now, sir, the Gallowgate’s not the place for an
+American gentleman by himself, with the night coming
+on. Mind ye, sir, I’ve had no trouble of my own in the
+Gallowgate. But this Mutto’s Wynd will be some wee vennel
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>or passage, and dark. Ye’ve heard tell of Teddy Boys and
+such? Aye. Well, if ye must go, take a cab, sir; and make
+the driver wait for ye. The man that left this card—he
+would be a bookie, I think. Nothing against him, sir,
+nothing whatsoever. And the chief constable has done fine
+work in the Gallowgate and the Gorbals, verra gude work.
+They were worse when I was a lad. But were I yourself, sir,
+I wouldna stop in a pub there. In the Gallowgate, the folk
+think all Americans are millionaires. Would it were true,
+sir? Ha, ha. Aye, would it were true.”</p>
+
+<p>Going into the washroom at the travel-agency, Logan
+took out of his pockets his passport, his traveller’s checks,
+and most of the pound notes he had got at the hotel desk.
+He put them into the leather money-belt he wore beneath
+his shirt. Logan had been around, though most people
+wouldn’t credit it, apparently, when they looked at his
+face; and he had the thorn stick with him. Then he took
+a cab to Mutto’s Wynd, in the Gallowgate.</p>
+
+<p>Mutto’s Wynd turning out too narrow for any motorcar,
+the driver parked the cab at the mouth of the entry. In
+Mutto’s Wynd, most of the buildings were derelict, and
+some unroofed, since the Scots pay no taxes on roofless
+buildings. Even for smoke-grimed Glasgow, Mutto’s Wynd
+was very black. The dreary little building that was No. 5
+stood near the mouth of the vennel, and the cab would be
+almost within call.</p>
+
+<p>Although the windows of No. 5 seemed not to have
+been washed this decade, a freshly-painted sign nailed
+above the door read “J. Dowie, Commission Agent.”
+Logan gave the driver a pound note. “Keep the change,”
+Logan said, “but wait for me.” The driver sighed, looking
+uneasily down the wynd. Three doors beyond, there projected
+the sign of a public house, the Dun Stirk. “But stay
+near the cab.”</p>
+
+<p>“O aye,” the driver grunted, “ye needna teach this auld
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>dog new tricks.” Logan rapped at the battered door of
+No. 5.</p>
+
+<p>Quite promptly, a heavy-jowled little man in a sagging
+business-suit and a soiled old cap opened that door. “Come
+in, mon,” he said. “Ye’ll be thinkin’ o’ the pool?” The
+little low room—this building, elderly for rebuilt Glasgow,
+seemed once to have been a stable—contained a decrepit
+desk and three straight chairs; the walls, long ago, had
+been painted cream-color. The little man spoke the thickest
+Glasgow speech, with its clipped words and rolled r’s.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Dowie?” Aye, he was Mr. Dowie. “Mr. Dowie, I’ve
+been told you might know of a way to get to Carnglass.”</p>
+
+<p>Dowie, sucking in his fat cheeks, looked long and slyly
+at Logan. “Tak’ a chair, mon. Ye’ll no be frae these parts?”</p>
+
+<p>Logan sat. “I’m an American, Mr. Dowie, with business
+in Carnglass.”</p>
+
+<p>Dowie leaned against the desk. “An’ what wud that business
+be?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m representing my principal.”</p>
+
+<p>“Weel, then, Mr. American, ye’ll no object if I draw
+the curtains.” Dowie pulled heavy blanket-drapes across
+the filthy glass; he bolted the door. Logan sat easily on the
+rickety chair. “If it be Carnglass,” said Dowie, “that ye
+mean tae see, then ye’ll ken Tam Lagg?”</p>
+
+<p>“The factor. Yes, we’ve corresponded with him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Aye, just so. And ye’ll ken Dr. Jackman?” Here Dowie,
+stooping slightly, looked Logan in the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“No, Mr. Dowie, I don’t know any Dr. Jackman.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ye dinna ken Jackman? Noo think o’ this, Mr. American:
+I’m official agent o’ Tam Lagg. Ye’ve no need to keep
+matters frae me. What might your name be?”</p>
+
+<p>“Hugh Logan. I’m to see Lady MacAskival.”</p>
+
+<p>“O aye. Lady MacAskival. She’s no keepin’ verra weel,
+ye ken.”</p>
+
+<p>“So I understand.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>“No weel enough for chit-chat, Mr. Logan.” Dowie
+nodded mournfully. “And noo ye’re in auld Scotland, ye’ll
+tak’ a trip to Rabbie Burns’ country?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve only time for a Carnglass trip.”</p>
+
+<p>“Rabbie Burns’ country is Alloway and Ayr, ye ken,
+Mr. Logan. A braw poet, Rabbie Bums. ‘A mon’s a mon
+for a’ that’—eh, Mr. Logan?” An unconvincing smile came
+suddenly over Dowie’s sodden face, and he clapped a dirty
+hand on Logan’s shoulder, in token of comradeship. Logan
+did not move or smile.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose what Burns meant, Mr. Dowie, is that worth
+and genius matter more than rank—or as much, anyway.
+I don’t know that he had Glasgow bookies in mind.”</p>
+
+<p>“O aye,” Dowie muttered, removing his hand. He scowled
+uneasily, and then brightened artificially again. “O aye. I
+see ye’re a card, Mr. Logan. Aye, a poet o’ the first water,
+Rabbie Burns. But ye’ve fine writers in the States, too.
+Political writers. Ye’ll ken are or twa o’ them?”</p>
+
+<p>Logan shook his head. “I don’t know a single political
+writer, Mr. Dowie.”</p>
+
+<p>“And ye’ll no ken Dr. Jackman?”</p>
+
+<p>“This literary conversation is very pleasant, Mr. Dowie,”
+Logan said. “But do you know of a ship or a launch that
+will take me to Carnglass?”</p>
+
+<p>Dowie sat down at the desk and pulled open a drawer.
+“Noo your principal, Mr. Logan—he’ll be Mr. Duncan
+MacAskival?”</p>
+
+<p>Over the edge of the open drawer, a cablegram form
+was just visible. “Then you’re the agent for forwarding
+the post to Carnglass, Mr. Dowie.”</p>
+
+<p>“Wha’ loon told ye that?”</p>
+
+<p>“Has Lady MacAskival received our cables?”</p>
+
+<p>“Wud I be a miracle-mon, Mr. Logan? I canna send
+word tae Carnglass by Tellie—by TV, ye Yanks say. And
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>wha’ wi’ the high seas, there’s no boat that wud put oot
+for Daldour nor Carnglass these three days syne.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then I suppose Lady MacAskival’s not expecting me?”</p>
+
+<p>“Ye can suppose wha’ ye like, Mr. Logan.”</p>
+
+<p>“When can I get passage from Glasgow to Carnglass?”</p>
+
+<p>“Na, na, mon, I’m thinkin’ there’ll be no boat for Carnglass.”
+Dowie rested his chin in his pudgy hand. His eyes
+swept over Logan with that look of low cunning Logan
+had seen, so often, in malingering or thieving soldiers.
+“But bide a wee, Mr. Logan: we’ll fetch a cup o’ tea for
+ye while ye’re here. Jeanie! Jeanie!” He shouted toward
+a back room. “Dinna fret, Mr. Logan: Jeanie’s my auld
+wifie. Jeanie! A cup o’ tea for a Yank gentleman!”</p>
+
+<p>Around a door-jamb peered a worn face. Logan rose.
+“Na, na, Mr. Logan, sit ye doon: it’s but Jeanie. Jeanie,
+chat wi’ the Yank gentleman while I see wha’ can be done
+to obleege him.” Dowie slipped into the back room at the
+moment Jeanie entered. Taking a chair, she sat staring
+dully at the grimy floor, quite silent.</p>
+
+<p>“Rather a clammy day, Mrs. Dowie.” Mrs. Dowie, who
+had a scarf tied round her head, said nothing at all. Dowie
+seemed to be telephoning from the back room; and Logan,
+an old hand at snapping up scraps of whispered evidence,
+contrived to make out a few words:</p>
+
+<p>“Aye, Jock, a Yank, but no in Yank’s clothes. Quick,
+noo.” The phone was hung up, and Dowie returned, that
+fixed smile across his face. “Jeanie! Hae ye no been entertainin’
+the gentleman? Fetch the tea, lass.”</p>
+
+<p>Jeanie went. “Well, now, Mr. Dowie,” Logan said, “have
+you found something for me?”</p>
+
+<p>“Ye wudna wish to go where they’ll no be expectin’ ye,
+wud ye, sir? And Lady MacAskival’s ower auld for company.
+Tak’ the plane home, Mr. Logan. Ye’ll do no business
+in Carnglass.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>“If you’ll do nothing for me, Dowie, I’ll go elsewhere.
+It’s getting late.”</p>
+
+<p>The look of triumphant cunning was back in Dowie’s
+eyes. “Aye, but the tea, Mr. Logan; bide for the tea.”
+Jeanie returned with a wooden tray, a teapot under a cozy,
+and three cups. Logan stood up.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m always in a hurry, Dowie. Thank you, Mrs. Dowie,
+but I haven’t time for tea.” There seemed to be voices
+raised outside in the wynd, now, and a heavy thud, rather
+as if someone had kicked the side of an automobile. “Good
+day to you.”</p>
+
+<p>“But first, man,” said Dowie, sidling between Logan and
+the street door, “we’ll shake hands a’ roun’, should auld
+acquaintance be forgot.” Logan briefly took Dowie’s hand,
+and then Jeanie’s. “And ye’ll confess, Mr. Logan, that ye
+came here o’ your ain free will, an’ no invitation.” Logan
+agreed. “Ye heard, Jeanie,” Dowie muttered. “Ye’re a witness.”
+In the street beyond the mouth of the wynd, a motor
+started, and Logan thought he heard a car drive away.</p>
+
+<p>“That may be my taxi leaving,” Logan said. He had
+his stick in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>“Weel, noo, Mr. American,” Dowie told him, with what
+possibly was intended for a convivial smile, “I’m sorry I
+couldna serve ye. Cheerio the noo. I’ll open the door for
+ye.” He did. And the second Logan stepped out, the door
+was slammed behind him and bolted.</p>
+
+<p>Mutto’s Wynd was shadowy. Yes, the taxi had gone; and
+lounging against the wall of No. 5 were four men. Logan
+faced them. They were very young roughs, three of them,
+with the greasy sideburns and the pimpled faces that went,
+in their sort, with a diet of fish and chips. The fourth man,
+a big lank fellow, older, wore a wide leather belt round
+his waist, and he had a very nasty smirk. By way of obstacle,
+the lank man thrust out a long leg.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>“Hello, Yank,” the lank man said. The other three
+came slowly round Logan.</p>
+
+<p>“Good evening, friend,” Logan answered. No one else
+was in the wynd.</p>
+
+<p>“This is the auld Gallowgate, Yank,” the lank man went
+on. “This was where they hangit the gallows-craws. We’re
+gallows-craws, Yank.” He gave a short, harsh whiskey-laugh,
+and the three young roughs cackled in echo. “Ye’ll stand us
+a dram at the Dun Stirk, Yank?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m sorry, friend, but I’m in a hurry.” It was quiet and
+dark in Mutto’s Wynd.</p>
+
+<p>The lank man smirked. “Damn ye, Yank, ye’ll no be in
+sic a hurry noo!” He flung himself toward Logan, one foot
+going out to trip him.</p>
+
+<p>Logan was ready. He thrust the point of the thorn stick
+into the lank man’s belly, and the lank man screamed and
+stumbled back. But one of the greasy youngsters had his
+arm round Logan’s throat, from the back. Taking the boy’s
+fingers, Logan bent them backward: the rough yelled and
+let go. And now they were on him, all four.</p>
+
+<p>Someone had a long razor. Logan caught the wrist that
+held it, striking with the point of his stick at the face behind;
+the razor dropped to the cobblestones, but someone
+else got Logan’s legs out from under him. He fell heavily
+on the wet stones, and took a kick in the ribs. Another
+razor flashed. Someone had a hand inside Logan’s coat.
+The mackintosh he wore hampered him. There came a
+kick at his head, though a glancing blow. He had hold at
+last of someone’s thighs, and was struggling upward. A
+kick in the back; and a razor slashed one sleeve of the mackintosh.
+All that saved him for the second, Logan knew,
+was that they were so close about him as to get in one another’s
+way.</p>
+
+<p>This was no simple robbery: they meant to slash or
+cripple him, or something worse. Another fierce kick in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>his ribs. The man he had got by the thighs slipped and fell
+upon him. And as Logan fought clear, he heard steel-plated
+heels running over the cobbles. Someone was helping
+him up: a tall policeman. Another policeman was
+chasing four dim figures down the wynd.</p>
+
+<p>The policeman who had lifted Logan had a bruise over
+one eye. “That was Jock Anderson’s lads, Donald,” he
+panted to the other policeman, returned from the unsuccessful
+chase. “Jock gie me the bash over the eye.” Logan was
+getting his breath back. “If ye’ll prefer charges, sir,” the
+policeman said to him, “we’ll have warrants out for these
+chaps; we know them.”</p>
+
+<p>“There’s small harm done, constable, and I’m leaving
+Glasgow tomorrow.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did they not take your money, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>Logan felt inside his coat and discovered no billfold.
+“Yes, but I hadn’t much with me.”</p>
+
+<p>If the gentleman would come to the station and swear
+to a complaint, the second constable told him, they might
+not have to trouble him further. “Your cabbie found us,
+sir; they forced him awa’.” Logan left a five-pound note
+with the policeman for the driver. “Were ye in No. 5
+yonder, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>Though the constable named Donald knocked hard at
+the door of No. 5, no one answered, and the building
+showed no light. “By this time,” Donald said, “Jim Dowie’s
+flitted, and his wife Jeanie with him. And I dinna think
+we could charge them. But we’re keepin’ watch on Dowie,
+sir: a slippery one.”</p>
+
+<p>Then, in the Gallowgate, they found him another taxi
+to take him back to the hotel. And in India Street, Logan
+washed the grime of Mutto’s Wynd from himself. Stiff and
+bruised: but no ribs broken, and the razor had slashed only
+the mackintosh. There still was time to go down to dinner.
+Afterward, Logan had promised, he would go round to the
+station and swear to a statement.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>In his hot tub, Logan tried to make sense of what had
+happened. The policemen took it for a simple case of
+pocket-picking, perhaps abetted by Jim Dowie, Commission
+Agent. But Logan thought that Dowie had meant to keep
+him out of Carnglass—possibly. Who was this Jackman that
+Dowie had mentioned? Lady MacAskival’s private physician,
+or merely some crony or invention of Dowie’s? And
+what interest had Dowie, or anyone else, in keeping him
+out of Carnglass? And why should Thomas Lagg the factor
+have a friend, and mail-forwarder, like J. Dowie? Logan
+felt full of fight. He would take the morning train to Oban,
+and there, no matter what the price, he’d find passage to
+Carnglass.</p>
+
+<p>On going down to dinner, Logan stopped at the reception-desk
+to see if there might be a message from Carnglass.
+There was none. Presumably Dowie really had Duncan
+MacAskival’s cables in his desk. But also it was likely
+that Dowie, during this weather, had no way of getting
+word to Carnglass. If so, Logan would be quite unexpected
+when he landed. That might be just as well, supposing that
+Lagg had some connection with the queer business in
+Mutto’s Wynd.</p>
+
+<p>As he turned away from the reception-counter, Logan
+felt himself being watched. Or were his nerves on edge?
+He glanced to the right, and a man’s eyes met his, but
+dropped away hastily. It was like looking into the eyes of
+a bird: little black eyes, darting and quick to flee. The
+man, he thought, had been looking at the top leaf of the
+open hotel register. As Logan went into the dining room,
+he looked back; the man was going out into the street. But
+he had a good view of him.</p>
+
+<p>Birdlike? The man’s body was anything but birdlike,
+unless one thought of a stork. Tall, with shoulders thrown
+back; a heavy, rather clumsy torso, protruding in front; but
+the legs extremely thin. The man wore a bowler and a good
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>worsted town-suit, dark gray; he was getting into a raincoat
+as he passed out of Logan’s sight into India Street. He
+carried a long malacca stick. Even in these brief glimpses,
+Logan had the impression that this fellow meant to be
+taken for a country gentleman or a retired officer. Yet somehow
+the effect did not quite come off. Logan told himself
+not to be edgy: it wouldn’t do to suspect every hotel-guest
+of dark designs. Perhaps the man had only been glancing at
+a raw spot on Logan’s cheek, where Jock Anderson’s boot
+had scraped.</p>
+
+<p>Yet after dinner, and just before he took a cab to the
+police station, the receptionist with the taffy hair spoke to
+Logan. “Did the gentleman find you, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>“What gentleman?”</p>
+
+<p>“He didn’t leave his name, sir; he only asked after you—if
+you were staying in the hotel—and waited a moment by
+the counter. I thought he would have seen you when you
+went into dinner. A military gentleman, perhaps.”</p>
+
+<p>Yes, that would have been the man with the bird’s eyes:
+a military, or pseudo-military, gentleman. Logan made up
+his mind to remember that gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>Of that gentleman, and of his business in Carnglass,
+however, Logan said nothing to the Glasgow police, who
+took his deposition and promised action. Already they had
+been looking for Jock and his lads, but with no luck. It
+was odd, the constable named Donald said: to get out of
+town, or to find some snug hidie-hole, Jock and his gang
+would have required more money than they took from the
+gentleman. Yet somehow they had gone to earth, and so
+had Dowie.</p>
+
+<p>Logan told the sergeant that he was touring Scotland,
+and would be in Oban a few days, at the Station Hotel.
+“Never place money with lads like Jim Dowie,” they told
+him.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later, in bed at Todd’s Hotel, and tired though
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>he was, Logan took up “A Summary History of Carnglass
+and Daldour.” Balmullo, the old minister, might have been
+a bigot; yet he had a keen eye and ear. There was a page
+of description of the New House of Fear, built down by
+the harbor by Donald MacAskival—one of the extravagances
+that had ruined him—in 1777.</p>
+
+<p>“It had been the MacAskival’s design,” Balmullo wrote,
+“to have demolished <i>in toto</i> the Old House. But the chieftain’s
+means did not permit of this undertaking. Accordingly,—and
+to the chagrin of every connoisseur of the arts
+who sets foot upon the mole of Askival harbour,—the rude
+Gothic construction has been permitted to loom intact
+upon its ruder eminence, denuded of its plenishing save
+for the gigantic carven chimneypieces. There remains also,
+above the principal entrance to the Old House, a tremendous
+escutcheon, its bearings in some part defaced, but yet
+displaying the graceless figure of a Wild Man, armed with
+a dirk, which Wild Man the vulgar name Askival, the
+reputed founder of the fortress; and beside the Wild Man a
+female figure in a state of undress, whom, with still less
+authority, the folk of the island call Marin or Merin. Below
+these sculptures, in the letters of a later period, is inscribed
+the legend, ‘They have said and they will saye. Let
+them be saying.’</p>
+
+<p>“Of baseless rumor and frantic conjecture, the island of
+Carnglass has no stint. In contempt, I must record that the
+natives of this island, blind to the perfections of the New
+House, continue to allege that Donald MacAskival built
+afresh not out of an elevated taste, but rather because, in
+the Old House, he had dwelt in dread of the wraiths of his
+fathers, said to have waxed wroth with their descendant
+for his prudent decision to expel from Carnglass the superfluous
+population. A gaunt and bearded spectre, to which
+is given the appellation of Old Askival, is reputed to stalk
+the empty corridors and chambers, in particular the subterranean
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>portions of the oldest tower. An obscure tradition
+asseverates that a hidden passage leads from these cellars
+to a recess, and thence to the outer world. Yet the Old
+House having been builded upon the living rock, as has
+been observed elsewhere in these pages, this supposition
+can have no more substance than the Kingdom of the Fairies.”</p>
+
+<p>Here Logan turned out the light. For all his aches and
+pains, he never had slept sounder in his life.</p>
+
+<p>On his second Scottish morning, Hugh Logan took the
+train for Oban. The wind had gone down somewhat, and
+the rain was over, though grim gray clouds still lay to the
+west. Through Larbert and Stirling, past the Castle high
+on its rock, the train puffed up to Callender. Logan sat in
+a compartment where two old ladies dozed over their
+knitting. Half the time he looked at the hills and villages,
+and half the time he read in Balmullo’s “Summary History.”
+And so the train swept into the West Highlands.</p>
+
+<p>As they approached Loch Awe, someone paused outside
+the glass door of Logan’s compartment. Looking up, Logan
+saw the man clear: the man in the bowler, the “military
+gentleman” with the little black bird-eyes. That military
+gentleman was observing him; but the furtive look moved
+on to the two somnolent old ladies opposite. For a moment,
+Logan thought the man was about to pull back the door
+and enter. Yet the face turned away, and the military
+gentleman was gone from the corridor. Logan had enjoyed
+a thorough look at his face: the swollen long nose;
+the red and purple veins that bulged against the coarse
+skin; and those tiny, frightened, frightening black eyes,
+sunk into the skull. About fifty years old, Logan estimated,
+though seeming older. And a cashiered British officer, some
+intuition suggested.</p>
+
+<p>Cashiered, yes. Logan made almost a hobby of collecting
+clippings from newspapers about curious cases of criminal
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>law, strange points of evidence, failures to convict despite
+strong testimony. It was power of memory, as much as
+anything else, that had brought Logan success at the bar
+while he still was young. Now he tried to dredge up from
+memory that repugnant face of the military gentleman.
+Cashiered, cashiered. Hadn’t he read of a captain or major
+cashiered in India, and subsequently tried by a criminal
+court for some separate, though related, offense—and got
+off by a very clever barrister? A barrister with somewhat
+unsavory political connections? The case had been nasty,
+remarkably nasty—and the officer’s acts nastier still. Hadn’t
+some London friend, years ago, sent Logan the penny-press
+clippings about the case, with a picture or two of the accused?
+What had the fellow’s name been? Something short?
+Gale, or Hare? No, even Logan’s trained memory could not
+recall the details. Yet the face of the military gentleman at
+the hotel and in the corridor, Logan felt, was curiously like
+the nasty face he half-recollected from the smudgy newspaper
+photograph. Had there been espionage hinted at the
+military hearings? The man had been a bad lot in many
+ways. But Logan couldn’t feel quite sure he had not fancied
+the resemblance.</p>
+
+<p>By Ben Cruachan, through the Pass of Brander; across
+the river at Bridge of Awe; then Connel Ferry. The mountains
+loomed nobly as the train approached the coast. The
+military gentleman did not return. A few minutes more,
+and the train swung into the resort and fishing-port of
+Oban, on the Firth of Lorn. Now the Western Isles were
+in plain sight—Kerrera, at least, right opposite Oban.
+Logan could see its treeless bulk from the window of his
+hotel. Of the military gentleman, no trace. Logan looked
+for him in the railway station, but he must have got off
+hurriedly from a forward coach and have gone into the
+town. Not that Logan much desired to see the military
+gentleman again.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">3</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>“You might inquire at the North Pier, Mr. Logan,” said
+the Reverend Andrew Crawford, “but I do not believe
+any fisherman will undertake to set you ashore in Carnglass.
+All the boats will be gone from the harbour until
+sunset: the storm kept them in port for three days, and
+they won’t wish to waste another day in carrying a passenger
+to Carnglass.”</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Andrew Crawford, minister of St.
+Ninian’s Church, was a knowledgeable man. The people
+at the Station Hotel had sent Logan to him, not knowing
+themselves how he might get to Carnglass. Mr. Crawford
+had set foot in most of the Outer Isles that still were inhabited.
+Now he and Logan stood at the door of the manse,
+looking down the hill to Oban town and the piers, with
+the dim gray Hebrides far beyond the blue sea.</p>
+
+<p>“I’d pay whatever they might ask,” Logan told him.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s not wholly a matter of <i>l.s.d.</i>, Mr. Logan. The swell
+round Carnglass and Daldour always is heavy. I had difficulty
+in getting ashore in Daldour, the day I visited, and I
+never have seen Carnglass, except from Daldour or a boat.
+Lady MacAskival does not let even the minister or the
+priest ashore. She has her own style of religion. And these
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>trawlers from the mainland aren’t popular with the island
+folk. Once the keepers fired at an Oban boat that tried to
+put into Askival harbour; nor are the men in Daldour
+much more hospitable. No, I think you’d best take MacBrayne’s
+steamer to Loch Boisdale: the South Uist fishermen
+know the Carnglass waters. The reefs off Carnglass
+are murderous.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who lives in Daldour, Mr. Crawford?”</p>
+
+<p>“There is but one name in Daldour—MacAskival. An
+inbred folk. In Daldour there is a little machair—that’s
+the sandy land of the Island—and the island people fertilize
+it with seaweed, and grow potatoes. Also they gather seaweed
+and sell it; in the season, a drifter puts close into
+shore, and the Daldour men bring out the seaweed in their
+lobster-boats and load it aboard, and it is sold on the mainland.
+On the day I visited Daldour, all the folk were at the
+beach with their carts, running straight into the surf to
+gather the tangle. Theirs is a poor life. The Daldour
+women weave a few decent rugs and sweaters. They speak
+a strange Gaelic, with some Norse words in it. For a
+month, one of our missionaries lived in Daldour, but he
+was half daft when he left. ‘Mr. Crawford, I have served
+my time among the Mau Mau,’ he said to me. And that
+though he was a Highlander and a Gaelic speaker.”</p>
+
+<p>“Can you tell me anything about Lady MacAskival,
+Mr. Crawford?” Logan asked. But—after a slight discreet
+pause—Mr. Crawford could not. Logan, leaving him, went
+down to the North Pier to make inquiries after any boat
+that might carry him to Carnglass.</p>
+
+<p>He had no luck. It would have to be MacBrayne’s
+steamer to Loch Boisdale in the morning, he thought, for
+already it was late afternoon. If the sea should be calm
+tomorrow, even a big motor-launch ought to be able to
+carry him from South Uist to Carnglass. After a stroll
+along the esplanade to the cathedral, Logan went back to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>his hotel at the other end of the town and had dinner. The
+trawlers were in the harbor now, unloading their catch
+upon the quay. But the fishermen were too busy to be
+bothered with eccentric Americans that wanted passage to
+Ultima Thule, Logan suspected. A light rain was coming
+down. Despite that, after dinner Logan put his oilskin
+cape over his shoulders, took up his stock, and—for lack of
+anything better to do—climbed the hill behind the town.</p>
+
+<p>At the summit there was a strange building, Logan had
+noticed as soon as he had come out of Oban railway station:
+a circular roofless affair, like a ruined temple. This,
+according to the hotel people, was called McCaig’s Folly,
+and had been built long ago as an observation-tower, but
+never finished. Now, in the gloaming, Logan found himself
+close beside the Folly. The season being too early for
+tourists at Oban, the area round the Folly was deserted,
+so that Logan walked alone in the drizzle, thinking idly
+of the Old House of Fear and old Duncan MacAskival
+and his own solitary and work-laden life. A scrap from
+Scott came into his head:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="first2">“Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!</div>
+<div class="indent">To all the sensual world proclaim</div>
+<div class="verse">One crowded hour of glorious life</div>
+<div class="indent">Is worth an age without a name.”</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Was that the way it went? Even leading his battalion,
+Logan never had known that crowded hour. And as he
+thought of how some men are drunken with drink, and
+others drunken with work, he heard steps in the darkness
+behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Looking over his shoulder, Logan made out a familiar
+figure, a few paces distant: the military gentleman. When
+Logan slackened pace, the military gentleman hesitated
+for a moment, and then strode on toward him. “Captain
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>Gare!” the military gentleman called out, by way of introduction.</p>
+
+<p>“Good evening, sir,” Logan said. Captain Gare, coming
+very close up to him with a swagger of sorts, looked down
+from his stork-height upon Logan. Flickering from side
+to side, the disconcertingly mobile little black bird-eyes
+never paused for more than a fraction of a second to meet
+Logan’s stare. The man struck his long stick against his
+own trousers-leg. He opened his mouth, paused, gripped his
+stick more firmly, and then spoke in a reedy educated voice.</p>
+
+<p>“Look here,” said Captain Gare. “I say—I.... That is,
+cigarettes—yes, cigarettes....” There was an aroma of
+whiskey about Captain Gare, but Logan did not think he
+was drunk. Certainly Gare was exceedingly nervous, and
+he seemed disposed toward bullying.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m sorry,” Logan told him mildly, “but I don’t have
+any cigarettes about me.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, no.” Captain Gare, scowling, paused afresh, perhaps
+trying to take a new tack. “No, I don’t require cigarettes,
+not really. I don’t smoke—nor drink, either. I say:
+you’re an American, are you not?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why should you think so, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t take offense,” said Captain Gare. “Are you
+ashamed of being an American? I’m not a chap people can
+take liberties with. You’re an American chap, I know. Your
+name is Logan.”</p>
+
+<p>“I saw you at Todd’s Hotel,” Logan observed.</p>
+
+<p>“Did you? Did you really? I travel a great deal, Mr.
+Logan: private means, you know. Yes, that’s it: I saw your
+name in the hotel register, and thought we might have
+something in common.”</p>
+
+<p>“What might we have in common, Captain Gare?”
+Logan spoke evenly. Captain Gare swept his bird-eyes
+across Logan’s face again, seeming to gain heart. He
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>slapped the stick against his leg, below the short mackintosh
+he wore.</p>
+
+<p>“I say—don’t know India, I suppose? Never tried pig-sticking?
+No, I suppose not; not you American chaps. True
+sport, you know. I was rather good.” He towered belligerently
+above Logan. “There’s nothing like steel. See here.”
+Captain Gare tugged at the head of his stick, and it came
+away from the wood. It was a sword-stick, two or three
+inches of blade showing above the cane. Logan had an
+amusing momentary vision of a fencing-match there in the
+rain, complete with cries of “touché!” Captain Gare,
+glowering upon him, rammed the blade back into its
+stick-scabbard.</p>
+
+<p>“I take it that you know the world, Captain Gare,”
+Logan said, smiling slightly.</p>
+
+<p>“Rather better than you do, I fancy, Logan.” It was clear
+that Captain Gare now felt himself master of the situation.
+“I say, we needn’t beat about the bush, eh? I’m told you’ve
+been at the pier inquiring after passage to Carnglass.”</p>
+
+<p>“You’re an astute man, Captain Gare.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s as it may be.” Captain Gare’s swollen features
+bent toward Logan. “Look here: it’s quite pointless for you
+to go to Carnglass, you know—quite. I suppose you’re a
+solicitor-chap, are you not?”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s as it may be,” said Logan. “My father and
+grandfather were Writers to the Signet. You have an interest
+in Carnglass, Mr.—that is, Captain—Gare?”</p>
+
+<p>“One of my friends has an interest there, sir. He knows
+Lady MacAskival very well. Handles her affairs, as a matter
+of fact. Saves her annoyance. She never welcomes callers,
+you understand.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m afraid my business is with Lady MacAskival herself.”</p>
+
+<p>Captain Gare edged still closer. “Lady MacAskival is
+not competent to transact business, Mr. Logan. I mean to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>say that she’s infirm. Quite old, you know. No taste for
+American trippers.”</p>
+
+<p>“She has been in correspondence with my principal.”</p>
+
+<p>“Nonsense!” Captain Gare brandished his stick. “Mean
+to say, that’s rubbish, you know. Lady MacAskival never
+writes. Infirm, a very elderly party. Come, now, Logan:
+I dare say you’ve gone to moderate expense in this fool’s
+errand. You’ll never see Carnglass. My friend is a liberal
+man, and very close to Lady MacAskival. Money’s little
+object to him or her. Suppose, now, on their behalf, I give
+you three hundred pounds, if you like? Simply by way of reimbursement,
+we may put it, Logan. Fair enough, eh? And
+then back to Brooklyn with you, eh?”</p>
+
+<p>“You have the money in your pocket?” Logan inquired.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course not.” Captain Gare gave him a supercilious
+smile. “A man doesn’t carry such sums on his person, you
+know. Come back into town with me, like a good chap,
+and I’ll write a cheque in your favor.”</p>
+
+<p>“I do happen to carry such sums on my person, Captain
+Gare,” Logan told him.</p>
+
+<p>The military gentleman’s little eyes widened and flickered.
+His left hand stole nervously along the sword-stick.
+“Not really? Hundreds of pounds in notes in your pocket?
+I say....”</p>
+
+<p>“Not in notes, Captain Gare: in traveller’s cheques.”
+Here Captain Gare sighed slightly, and his grip on the
+stick slackened. “Now could you be interested, Captain
+Gare, in some such sum as six hundred pounds?”</p>
+
+<p>“Six hundred pounds?” Captain Gare drew a sudden
+breath. “Really, my dear fellow, are you suggesting that
+you might pay me six hundred pounds? Whatever for?”</p>
+
+<p>“For certain information.”</p>
+
+<p>“What manner of information, my dear sir?” Captain
+Gare turned slightly, there in the dark, as if to make sure
+no one was at hand.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>“For instance,” Logan said, “detailed information concerning
+the past, present, and future of Jackman.”</p>
+
+<p>That bow, drawn at a venture, sent its arrow home. On
+Gare’s unpleasant face the mottled veins seemed to swell;
+the man stepped back. “Who the devil are you?” cried
+Captain Gare, with a quaver in the reedy voice.</p>
+
+<p>“I take it that you know now what I am,” said Logan,
+still quietly. “Whatever made you think I might accept
+money?”</p>
+
+<p>“I beg your pardon, sir; really, I ...” Captain Gare
+was stumbling over his words. “That is, you did not seem
+precisely an American. All a pose, eh? I say, you don’t
+mean that you’re ... that I’m....”</p>
+
+<p>“If you tell me about Jackman,” Logan went on, “we
+need say no more of all this, so far as you are concerned.
+We already know a great deal about Dr. Jackman, of
+course, but conceivably you might add something or other.
+You’re the fellow who was cashiered, I take it. We know
+enough about you.”</p>
+
+<p>“I swear it was a miscarriage of justice, Mr. Logan—or
+whatever your name is, sir. I mean that affair in Madras.”
+Gare was almost panting. “But Jackman—no, really, I
+can’t say anything, not for six thousand pounds. My life
+wouldn’t—but you know that quite as well as I do.”</p>
+
+<p>The swollen face had gone deathly pale. Even had he
+been able to probe deeper without giving away his game,
+Logan reflected, this man would have been too frightened
+to be of any real help. It had been a good random thrust,
+that mention of Jackman, whoever Jackman might be.</p>
+
+<p>“Very well, Gare,” Logan said. “If you don’t choose to
+clear yourself, that’s not my concern. Very likely you’d
+be of no use to us. We’ll have Dowie and Anderson any
+hour now.” Gare shivered. That shot, too, had gone home.
+“As for you, Gare, you understand that if you don’t sever
+all connection with this business, we’ll see that you’re
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>taken into custody? Perhaps the Continent would be a
+safer place for you at present. And throw away that silly
+sword-stick: you couldn’t frighten babies with it.” Logan
+snatched the thing from Gare’s hand and flung it toward
+the lip of the hill; the steel flashed in the moonlight, and
+then blade and stick were lost in the gorse. “Be off, now;
+I’ve tired of you.”</p>
+
+<p>Gare, backing further away, muttered pitifully, “Then
+you’re.... Then I’m not under...?” Logan gestured
+impatiently toward the town below.</p>
+
+<p>“You can go to the devil, Gare.”</p>
+
+<p>Captain Gare turned with clumsy haste, all his swagger
+gone, and scuttled heavily down the path toward town;
+after he had gone a few paces in the dark, Logan thought
+he heard him break into a run. Yes, it had been a thoroughly
+satisfying random shot. He did not think he would
+see Captain Gare again.</p>
+
+<p>Yet whoever thought it worthwhile to offer Logan three
+hundred pounds to steer clear of Carnglass? Gare had
+bungled the business badly; he must have been acting without
+instruction from his principal, Logan thought—whoever
+that principal might be. Dowie? Or Lagg? Or this
+fellow Jackman? There were depths in this business, surely,
+unplumbed by old Duncan MacAskival. Trying to piece
+the thing together, Logan walked slowly back to the Station
+Hotel. There the night porter gave him tea and biscuits,
+and afterwards Logan went up to his rather chilly high-ceilinged
+room, and stared at the plaster cornice for half
+an hour before he went to sleep. But he could form no
+clear picture of what he had begun to call to himself the
+Carnglass Case.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>As he dressed, next morning, Logan saw from his window
+the steamer “Lochness” at the pier: it would take him
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>to Loch Boisdale, and he hurried into his clothes and
+gulped down tea at 5:45. This was Wednesday, his third
+morning in Scotland. Thus far, only frustration: and yet
+the sort of frustration which roused Logan’s energies. To
+judge from the impromptu and ineffectual measures that
+Dowie and Gare had adopted, he was dealing only with an
+ill-organized and eccentric opposition—though with adversaries
+sufficiently unscrupulous. And it seemed to be an
+ill-informed opposition. Either that, or else Dowie and
+Gare were out of touch with the real intelligence at work,
+for some reason, supposing that they <i>had</i> principals for
+whom they were acting. Certainly neither of those two had
+seemed quite the man to concoct a scheme to keep an
+American from his prospective purchase of Carnglass. If
+there were a principal, would he be in the island? Lagg, the
+factor? The storm of two days ago might have kept the people
+in Carnglass from communicating with the mainland;
+but presumably messages now could be sent and received
+by boat. Whatever messages might be sent, it scarcely was
+possible that he should receive in Carnglass the sort of
+rude welcome he had got in Mutto’s Wynd. Even if Carnglass
+was Ultima Thule, still it was part of Britain, the
+most law-abiding of nations; and there would be Lady MacAskival
+for surety.</p>
+
+<p>At six o’clock the “Lochness” steamed away from the pier
+toward the Sound of Mull. They crossed the Firth of
+Lorne; and then, to the south, they skirted the great rocky
+mass of Mull, while the wild shores of Morven frowned
+upon them from the north. Several islanders were among
+the passengers, and for the first time in years Logan heard
+the Gaelic spoken naturally, that beautiful singing Gaelic
+of the Hebrides. It went with the cliffs, the sea-rocks, the
+ruined strongholds of Mull and Morven, the damp air,
+the whitewashed lonely cottages by the deep and smoothly
+sinister sea.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>As the hours passed, the steamer put into Tobermory,
+and later touched at the flat islands of Col and Tiree. It
+crossed the broad rough waters of the Little Minch, with
+the romantic line of the Outer Isles before them, and the
+round bulk of Barra drawing closer. After Castlebay, in
+Barra, the “Lochness” steamed north past Eriskay, and
+into the splendid dark anchorage of Loch Boisdale, in
+South Uist, that sprawling low island of peat.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly midnight now. Going ashore, Logan got
+himself a room at the homely, cordial inn above the harbor.
+There was a schoolmaster in Loch Boisdale village, the
+hotelkeeper said, who might know of a drifter that could
+put Logan ashore in Carnglass.</p>
+
+<p>Once more alone in a rented room with only conjectures
+for company, Hugh Logan settled himself in bed and
+took up that battered pamphlet by the Reverend Samuel
+Balmullo. Mr. Balmullo’s taste certainly had run to old
+bones. Here was a tidbit:</p>
+
+<p>“Even in the fierce chronicles of the Western Isles, the
+chieftains of MacAskival are distinguished by a repute
+for deeds of blood and passion exceedingly disproportionate
+to the wealth and power of their sept. In the last
+century, upon the removal of the plenishing of the Old
+House to the New House of Fear, there were discovered
+in a curious pit or oubliette in the crypts the skeletal remains
+of a human being, still bearing the marks of violence.
+This pit long had been put to the office of a brine-tub,
+and it is supposed, accordingly, that the bones had
+lain hid at the bottom for a great while, perhaps some
+centuries. By any person inured to the sorry superstitions
+of the people of Carnglass, it might have been anticipated—as,
+indeed, it befell—that the vulgar peasantry, upon the
+exhibition of these sad relics of mortality, would allege the
+bones—some of which were curiously injured or deformed—to
+be those of a Firgower, or Man-Goat. A legend less
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>incredible, however, relates that the skeleton is that of an
+illicit lover of a lady of MacAskival, seized by stealth at
+his abode in North Uist, transported to Carnglass, subjected
+to indescribable torments, and at length drowned
+in the brine of the oubliette. What the Duke of Clarence
+suffered in a butt of Malmsey, some obscure chieftain of
+the barbarous Hebrides, about the same period of antiquity,
+may have endured in a darksome pit filled to
+its brink with pickled herring.”</p>
+
+<p>At the close of this charming paragraph, Logan settled
+himself to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning, on his way to seek out the schoolmaster
+who might help him to a passage to Carnglass,
+Logan was surprised to find Loch Boisdale and its neighborhood
+bursting with activity. Navvies were unloading enormous
+crates from a freighter; two new bulldozers rumbled
+down the road toward the interior of the island; recently-built
+huts of corrugated iron, an age away from the primitive
+thatched Uist cottages of field-stone that stood scattered
+over the oozy plain, shouldered one another near
+the pier. The hotelkeeper had said briefly that something
+important, in a military way, was in progress in the
+heart of South Uist. A range for guided missiles, perhaps;
+and perhaps something even newer. Idle policemen,
+the hotelkeeper had said, lounged about the approaches
+to the construction-area. He did not like it. It would spoil
+the snipe-shooting, and also evict honest families from
+their crofts. “Those men in London are spoiling the best
+places and the best people.”</p>
+
+<p>About the middle of the morning, Logan plodded up
+the soggy road to the schoolhouse. The sky was very gray
+again, and a fairly heavy rain was falling; but even the
+guidebook confessed that the climate of South Uist was the
+worst in Britain. MacLean, the rawboned schoolmaster,
+would do what he could to assist the gentleman. Leaving
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>the schoolroom in charge of a senior boy, he went back
+with Logan toward the harbor. Yes, Mr. MacLean knew
+the master of a drifter, now in Loch Boisdale, who might
+conceivably engage to land Mr. Logan in Carnglass. This
+fisherman, though akin to the schoolmaster, was a very
+remote cousin, mind, and in need of money, to pay a
+fine. A fine for what? For poaching. Logan wanted to
+know what sort of poaching—fishing in forbidden waters?</p>
+
+<p>“No,” said MacLean, shortly, “sheep. Judge not that ye
+be not judged. My cousin Colin knows all the shore of all
+the lonely islands, and on some of the islands there are
+sheep, and deer. Whatever Colin is or is not, there is no
+better pilot in all the Outer Isles.”</p>
+
+<p>Although Colin’s boat was in the harbor, the man himself
+was not in sight when the schoolmaster and Logan got
+down to the pier. “He will be drinking somewhere,” the
+schoolmaster said. “But here are some people to interest
+you: people from Daldour.”</p>
+
+<p>Seated on the clammy pier, eating bread and butter in
+the drizzle, were three men in rough island dress and
+rubber boots—or, rather, two men and a bright-eyed boy.
+All three had about them a twilight look. Their bodies
+were lean, their cheeks were hollow, their teeth protruded
+slightly; a Lowlander might have said that they were not
+canny.</p>
+
+<p>They seemed so much alike that, but for differences in
+age, they might have been triplets. “MacAskivals,” the
+schoolmaster murmured. “A dying breed. In Daldour, now,
+most are old bachelors and old maids; they have seen too
+much of one another, and will not marry. The last of an
+old song. That big lobster boat by the pier is theirs; the
+MacAskivals have but a naked beach at Daldour. I will
+speak the Gaelic to them, for they will speak no English,
+although this boy knows the English well enough. Among
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>themselves, Mr. Logan, they speak a dialect as strange to
+me as the Gaelic is to you.”</p>
+
+<p>Except for the boy’s bright glance, the three MacAskivals
+had given no sign of recognition as the schoolmaster and
+Logan approached. Now, as Mr. MacLean spoke to the
+three in Gaelic, there came very faint shy smiles to all
+three narrow faces; the two men nodded, and the boy
+replied in the slow flowing Gaelic. Presently, in a cautious
+tone, the schoolmaster seemed to say something significant.
+The boy turned to the elder of the two men, who spoke
+curtly, and the boy translated for him to the schoolmaster.
+As he finished speaking, over the boy’s eyes came a kind of
+glaze, and the two men turned again to munching bread and
+butter, as if they had forgotten the existence of everyone
+else.</p>
+
+<p>“I asked them,” the schoolmaster told Logan, “whether
+they would take you with them to Daldour, and then to
+Carnglass. They are in Loch Boisdale for this day only,
+to buy what few things they do buy, from month to month.
+They said they would not take you to Carnglass; it is not
+a good place for a man to go.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not for fifty pounds?” Logan asked.</p>
+
+<p>“For no price, I believe. But if money speaks, my cousin
+Colin is the man for you. And here he comes.” A squat
+man was sauntering along the pier. “Colin is not overly
+civil, and he is fond of the drink; but he knows the waters
+and the coasts.” They turned away from the three silent
+MacAskivals and walked to meet the fisherman-poacher.</p>
+
+<p>What is uncommon among the people of the Isles, Colin
+MacLean seemed surly. He did not acknowledge the schoolmaster’s
+introduction of Logan. “Colin,” said the schoolmaster,
+“Mr. Logan asks you to set him ashore in Carnglass.
+I will leave you to make your bargain.” Logan shook his
+hand, and the schoolmaster strode up the hill.</p>
+
+<p>Colin MacLean gave Logan a long hard look from under
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>the brim of his sou’wester. “Carnglass, is it?” The only
+polish about Colin was his careful English speech, no doubt
+learned from the British Broadcasting Company, and uttered
+with a musical Gaelic intonation. Colin MacLean spat
+upon the pier. “Carnglass: and so Lagg and his keepers
+would shoot holes in my boat. You may go to hell, Mr.
+Logan.”</p>
+
+<p>Logan drew from his billfold ten big colorful notes of
+the Royal Bank of Scotland: five-pound notes. “This is
+yours, Mr. MacLean,” he said, “if you’ll set me ashore anywhere
+in Carnglass. It needn’t be Askival harbor. Is
+there no other spot where a boat might put in?”</p>
+
+<p>Colin stared at the notes. “There is a place, Dalcruach,
+in the east, where at high tide a boat—a small boat—can
+pass over the reefs, if the sea is calm. All the rest is cliff.
+But I would not risk my drifter among the rocks. You
+would need to row over the reefs alone. Here: I have an
+old dinghy. For twenty pounds more, I would sell it to
+you. I would bring you as close to Dalcruach as I could, and
+then you would take the dinghy and fend for yourself, Mr.
+Logan. Are you a seaman?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve rowed before,” Logan said. “Here’s another twenty
+pounds for the dinghy.”</p>
+
+<p>“The swell about Carnglass is a fearful thing,” Colin
+went on, shaking his heavy head in doubt, “and the reefs
+are like knives. Now would you sign a paper to say that
+Colin MacLean would be in no way responsible for the
+possible drowning of Mr. Hugh Logan?”</p>
+
+<p>“I would,” Logan answered. “Take me aboard your
+drifter, and I’ll write it now.”</p>
+
+<p>Colin tucked the five-pound notes into his pocket. “Midnight,
+Mr. Logan: come aboard at midnight, and we will
+make for Carnglass. It is not good to be seen landing in
+Carnglass; there might be a keeper with a rifle, even at Dalcruach.
+I will land you at Dalcruach early in the morning,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>with the tide in flood, the weather permitting. And then
+I wash my hands of it.”</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon, Logan borrowed from the hotelkeeper
+an old knapsack, into which he put some socks and underclothing,
+a shirt, sandwiches and chocolate, and a thermos
+of coffee. He would leave his suitcase at the hotel. He put
+on heavy waterproof boots and an old cap, and wore his
+oilskin and carried his stick. And he was ready long before
+midnight.</p>
+
+<p>Colin MacLean, with two less dour South Uist men who
+made up his crew, received him solemnly aboard the
+drifter. They puffed out of Loch Boisdale into the sea,
+with only two lights showing; and after that, for hours,
+Logan could perceive nothing but the obscurity of the
+night sky, clouds shutting out moon and stars. Before dawn,
+they stopped the engine, and Logan thought he could make
+out, vaguely, an enormous land-mass to the south. The
+drifter rolled heavily in a menacing swell; and there came
+the noise of that swell breaking upon rocks. “I will give you
+back your money for this dinghy,” said Colin, with a sour
+grin, “if you have changed your mind.”</p>
+
+<p>“Let me into the dinghy,” Logan told him, “and I’ll cast
+off.”</p>
+
+<p>“The more fool you,” Colin growled. They picked their
+way over the uneasy little deck to the stern, where the
+dinghy was in tow. MacLean let down a rope ladder into
+the little boat; he held an electric torch to light Logan’s
+descent. “Here,” said Colin, in a last-minute access of
+charity, “I will make you a present of the torch, Mr. Logan.
+And here is something else for you.” Colin took a bottle
+of whiskey from a jacket-pocket and thrust it into Logan’s
+canvas pack. “You will be wetted in beaching the boat,
+and the sea is cold. Row straight for the cliff ahead. The
+tide will carry you over the reef, but you must watch
+sharp for the needle-rocks. At Dalcruach clachan there is
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>a keeper’s cottage, and perhaps you can dry yourself there.”
+Under his breath, Colin muttered something like “God
+help you.”</p>
+
+<p>Then Logan cast off and took the dinghy’s oars. The
+drifter receded into the night.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment, breaking through the pall of cloud, the
+moon showed him the cliff-head above Dalcruach. What
+with oars, tide, and a slight breeze at his back, Logan swept
+in toward Carnglass, the Heap of Gray Stones.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">4</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>At Logan’s back, as he rode the crest of that grim darkling
+swell, the forlorn hope of sunrise was fighting upward in
+the sky. By that pallid light, diffused through a gray mist,
+he saw that he was in perilous waters. Had the breeze been
+higher, he could have had no hope for making shore,
+amateur oarsman that he was. Sweeping round the reefs
+toward the sheer cliffs just visible in the west, a current
+tugged in ugly mood at the oars; and he pulled hard against
+this current, for it would have hurried him against that
+fearsome wall. Still coming in toward shore, the tide helped
+him against the current. And now he was among rocks.</p>
+
+<p>From the white heave of the water, he perceived that he
+was passing over skerries which would be dry at low tide.
+What was worse to the eye, here and there stuck up sharp
+rocks like swords menacing the sky, the “needles” of which
+Colin had spoken. Had it not been dawn, surely he would
+have run straight upon one. All about them—they lay all
+too close, and suddenly he was passing some by—were
+wicked immense swirls and eddies, enough to bring a man’s
+heart into his mouth. And Logan’s heart did come into his
+mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Once only, in all his life before, had he been so frightened;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>and that had been in a place very different, though
+equally eerie—a broken tomb in Okinawa, where he had
+crouched with two other cut-off soldiers while the Japanese
+scouts shuffled and whispered in the dark all about.
+This fearsome coast was worse than the tomb had been, for
+here he was utterly alone, in a hostile element. The mind-picture
+of the Okinawan tomb, hurrying through his brain
+in this horrid wet moment, vanished when the dinghy
+swung toward one of the smaller needles as if drawn by a
+magnet. Logan thrust the tip of an oar hard against the
+rock, and the boat slipped past. A wild scraping sound and
+a trembling assailed him then: the dinghy hesitated, in the
+flood of the tide, right upon a reef barely submerged. Yet
+her bottom held; and next she was off that rasping bed and
+hurtling on toward the dim line of the beach.</p>
+
+<p>Logan was nearly powerless. What a fool he had been!
+This one crowded hour of glorious life he would have exchanged,
+gladly, for a lifetime of servitude in the law-office.
+Yet there seemed to be sand dead ahead; and if he
+could pull hard enough against the weakened current, he
+might yet get ashore.</p>
+
+<p>In the growing light, the island of Carnglass loomed like
+one tremendous barrier of naked and sheer precipice, except
+for a kind of fissure or den which was his goal, vague
+beyond the whitecaps. The needles were gone now; the
+swell was full and heavy, as if the skerries were past; and
+he could make out the waves flinging themselves upon a
+dark beach, fighting high toward some grass and stunted
+trees, and then retreating to the terror of the abyss. Two
+minutes more, and the dinghy was tossed by those waves
+right upon the sand.</p>
+
+<p>Leaping out, Logan tugged with all his remaining
+strength at a line attached to the bow, to draw the boat as
+high upon the shore as he might, the water swirling about
+his waist. Back came the surf, flinging the dinghy higher
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>yet, and blinding and drenching Logan, almost taking
+his feet from under him. Yet, persisting, he dragged the
+little boat over the sand with a power he had not known
+was in him; and when he thought she might be safe, he
+reached over the gunwale, grasped the heavy chunk of
+rusted iron that was her anchor, and flung it into the oozing
+sand. More he could not do; if the waves swept her out
+again, that was beyond his power to remedy. He staggered
+from the boat toward the tide-line and the grass beyond.
+When the sand grew firm under his feet, he fell nerveless
+to the beach, a spent man. And there he lay perhaps five or
+ten minutes, like a stranded jellyfish.</p>
+
+<p>It was done. The thing was done. He was ashore in
+Carnglass, and a whole man, though shivering and shaking
+with the reaction from his fright among the needles. Perhaps
+the game, after all, might be worth the candle.</p>
+
+<p>As some strength returned to him, his first thought was
+for the dinghy, in which his knapsack lay. Her anchor having
+held, the little boat rested askew upon the sand; he
+must have come in at the very flood of the tide, for already
+the combers broke further out, and the dinghy’s bows were
+altogether out of the water. Reeling to the boat’s side,
+Logan hauled out the knapsack and then plodded up the
+beach to the place where the heather and the gorse began
+to grow. He was in a kind of cove or pocket between
+thousand-foot cliffs, a triangle of land sloping steeply upward
+toward a third range of cliff at the back; and upon
+the face of that rearward cliff, not so beetling as its sea-neighbors,
+he thought he could make out the faint line of an
+ancient path.</p>
+
+<p>Something more welcome, however, now huddled close
+before him: a line of low rubble walls, the work of man.
+These were primitive cottages, no doubt the clachan of
+Dalcruach. They were larochs, roofless ruins, deserted these
+many years.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>All but one. Toward the end of the row of forlorn
+dwellings, a single thatched roof remained, kept secure
+against the Hebridean gales by a wide-meshed net spread
+over the rough thatch and anchored by big stones lashed to
+the net-ends. The hut had no chimney, but only a hole in
+the middle of the thatch; it had no windows, and a single
+door; this must be the “black house” of the Isles, one of
+those Viking-age cottages still inhabited, squat, thick-walled,
+snug, out of the childhood of the race. People
+dwelt in them still, Logan had been told, here and there
+in Uist and Barra. And this one might be the cottage of the
+keeper or gillie that Colin MacLeod had mentioned. Incautious
+in his weariness, Logan limped to the heavy door
+and pounded. No one answered: the hut seemed to be as
+empty as its roofless neighbors. And then Logan observed
+that the door had been secured by a padlock and hasp, but
+the hasp had been ripped away from the door-frame, the
+screws hanging impotent in their holes. Lifting the latch,
+Logan entered.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, it was a black house. Lacking proper fireplace or
+chimney, the peat smoke had eddied round the single room
+for centuries, perhaps, turning stone walls and beams and
+thatch to ebony. But it was dry, and it was furnished. There
+were a table and shelves, and a chair or two, and a heap of
+dry peats by the rough hearth below the gap in the thatch.
+And in a corner stood that rare object, the old-fashioned
+cotter’s closet-bed, built of boards up to the roof to keep
+off the draughts, with only a wide hole for the occupant
+to crawl in upon his mattress, and a curtain over that
+aperture. Logan pulled back the curtain. There was no
+one inside, but there were decent blankets upon the
+bed. Feeling like Goldilocks in the house of the Three
+Bears, Logan flung down his pack.</p>
+
+<p>Some dry bits of driftwood lay by the peats. Logan tested
+the cigar-lighter he had kept in an inner pocket of his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>jacket, to see if it would work; it still would. Making a
+little heap of kindling upon the hearth, he banked peats
+about it, and lit a fire; in three or four minutes, some of the
+brown and springy squares of peat had begun to smoulder,
+and Logan piled more peat upon them to keep the fire
+going while he slept. Only then did he throw off his
+drenched clothes, laying them upon a chair near the fire,
+and drag himself naked into the venerable bed, rolling
+deep into its blankets. Swiftly Logan sank into unconsciousness.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The sea-water having affected his watch, Logan could
+not tell what time it was, precisely, when at length he woke;
+but surely it was well into the afternoon. Some vigor had
+returned to his body. The slow-burning peats still glowed
+upon the hearth; the house was warm, and thick with the
+sweet smoke; daylight—the sun must be free of the clouds
+for a time—came through the smoke-gap in the thatch.
+There was no sound but the unending wash of the sea upon
+the beach, deadened here by the thickness of the walls of
+rubble. His clothes, still very damp but wearable, lay
+faintly steaming on the chair by the fire. This was the
+loneliest spot Logan ever had known.</p>
+
+<p>Having dressed, Logan turned out the contents of his
+knapsack, which had not suffered badly from the sea. A
+pair of binoculars he had bought before leaving America
+was intact, and he had his shaving-things, and the ordnance-map
+and old Balmullo’s pamphlet, and what mattered most
+to him, the thermos of coffee, Colin’s bottle of whiskey,
+and the big parcel of sandwiches from the hotel. Of those
+sandwiches, he promptly ate all but a reserve of two. Pouring
+the coffee into a pan he found upon the shelves, he set
+it to warm by the peats. Life was liveable again. And opening
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>the door with the broken hasp, Logan went out into
+the Carnglass afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>The ghostly clachan of Dalcruach lay silent in a cul-de-sac
+formed by the sea, the two sea-cliffs, and the inland
+cliff. Just now the sun was peeping through the gray blanket
+above. Everywhere water was running: little torrents
+foamed from the lip of the cliffs, and springs sent tiny
+streams down to the rocky bay, through gorse and heather
+and bracken. Between cliffs and tide, this bit of lowland
+must have been cultivated intensively for centuries, but
+now a towering forest of green bracken, high as Logan’s
+head, came right down to the backs of the ruined cottages.
+Except for some gulls, the only animate thing which Logan
+could see was a shape high up the face of the landward
+cliff: a goat, or perhaps a deer. Primroses already flowered
+upon the cliff-face. Upon these scanty and isolated acres,
+a little village of MacAskivals had subsisted from time out
+of mind. But they were gone, and Logan stood in this wet
+green desolation as if he were the last man on earth.</p>
+
+<p>He went down to the dinghy. The receding tide had
+left her high enough, but soon the sea would return; so he
+took off shoes and stockings and tried to drag her to a more
+sheltered place by a shelf of rock that ran up from the
+skerries into the silver sands of the beach. But though he
+bailed her out, she was too heavy for him; only the tide
+could budge her. Her oars he carried back to the black
+house. And now he would make his way across the island
+to the Old House, before evening came. The sun had withdrawn
+again, but surely he could find his way up the cliff,
+despite the mists, and so across brae and valley and hill
+to the Old House and Lady MacAskival. Already he had
+been nearly six days on the way.</p>
+
+<p>Sitting on a boulder by the door of the black house, he
+examined the ordnance survey map of Carnglass, Daldour,
+and the waters round about. Carnglass really was a peculiar
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>island. A ring of tremendous cliffs seemed to guard her
+from the sea at all points, except here at Dalcruach and at
+Askival harbor, a larger opening at the opposite extremity
+of Carnglass, away to the southwest. To judge by the
+contour-lines, these sea-cliffs also had an inner face, standing
+some five hundred feet high above a kind of central
+valley or moor. Halfway between Dalcruach and the Old
+House by Askival harbor, this valley was interrupted by a
+tall, sharp hill, ridges from which extended across the
+valley to the cliffs on either side of the island, a sort of
+watershed.</p>
+
+<p>As the gull flies, it could not be more than three miles
+from Dalcruach to the Old House. But there was the hard
+climb of the landward cliff behind Dalcruach; then the
+valley or moor would be boggy; and the ridge in the
+middle of the island must be surmounted; and between
+that ridge and the Old House were some markings which
+Logan took to indicate a bad bog. The trip would require
+some hours, and he had best set off. The dotted line of a
+minor path, on the map, suggested that some track ran
+across the island, but surely nothing like a road. Then
+Logan took up his thorn stick and began the ascent of the
+landward cliff.</p>
+
+<p>Up this dim path, surely little but sheep, goats, and
+deer had gone for many years. Here and there a hazel bush
+clung to the cliff’s edge. Though the day was cool, that
+sharp climb made Logan pant. After half an hour, he was
+at the summit, and much of Carnglass spread out before
+him—or would have been visible, had not the mist been
+growing thicker. He could make out the big hill—on
+the map it was called Mucaird—in the middle of the
+island, but the ridge and hill would have shut off Old
+House and New House, even had the day been clear. As
+a gust of wind in this high place dissolved the fog for a
+few moments, he glimpsed a derelict farm or sheep-steading
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>nestled against Mucaird. And the valley between him
+and the high hill was not an even plateau, but rugged
+and broken with spurs of rock, though the bracken waved
+over the higher parts of it. He turned his glasses toward
+the south. There, across the deep blue of the Sound of
+Carnglass, lay the low isle of Daldour.</p>
+
+<p>Now he would have to descend the inner face of the
+cliff, perhaps four hundred feet high, to the green valley: a
+descent more precarious than the climb from Dalcruach,
+for boulders lay tumbled upon the inner face, as if ready
+to fall to the valley floor, and their shapes were hidden by
+a dense growth of fern. He must step with care. Down he
+started.</p>
+
+<p>But about three boulders down, he halted again. The
+mist—here it hung cloud-like—lay just over his head, the
+sunlight coming through in a dim religious way. At the
+moment, the valley beneath him, nevertheless, was quite
+clear of fog. And almost straight down, in the part of the
+valley at the foot of his cliff, men were moving. Logan
+turned his binoculars upon them.</p>
+
+<p>Away to his left, a small puppet that must be a very big
+man was running frantically across the valley floor, just
+here rocky and bare. Some two hundred yards behind him,
+three other men trotted. These were armed men: it was
+rifles they seemed to be carrying. None of them were looking
+upward toward Logan. One of the three halted, knelt,
+brought his gun to his shoulder, and fired. The report
+echoed uncannily from the cliffs. He had shot at the big
+man leaping toward the further rocks: there could be no
+doubt of it.</p>
+
+<p>But the big man was not hit. He had reached some
+boulders near the southern cliff, and now crouched behind
+one of them, drawing something from the long cloak
+or coat he wore. As his three pursuers came on—the
+man must have been hidden from their view, Logan
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>thought—a report came from behind the cluster of boulders:
+the big man had a pistol. Immediately after firing,
+the man in the coat darted on to the next clump of
+boulders, and waited there. Stooping and taking what
+cover they could in the bracken, his three adversaries
+cautiously pushed forward, about ten yards from one another.
+The big man held the advantage of higher ground.
+As the three neared the rocks he had just left, and so came
+within range of his pistol, the big man fired a second time.
+Now the three pursuers fell flat on their faces, for the
+bullet seemed to have ricocheted against a boulder perilously
+close to the foremost rifleman. And taking advantage
+of their discomfiture, the big man scrambled on toward
+the mouth of a small ravine that appeared to twist into the
+southern cliff.</p>
+
+<p>Swinging his glasses toward the three riflemen, Logan
+thought he caught some movement to <i>their</i> rear. He focused
+the binoculars. Though he could not be sure, it
+seemed to him that someone or something was stealthily
+drawing closer, through bracken and gorse, to the three
+men. Whatever it might be—and if it was not an optical
+illusion—it kept hid in the green stuff; no head ever
+showed. If there, it must be moving on all fours, beast-like;
+what one detected was not a form, but a trail of movement
+through the dense bracken, to be discerned only by
+an observer who, like Logan, was perched high above.</p>
+
+<p>Logan looked back toward the big man, who was just
+disappearing into the gully or den at the southern cliff.
+Two of the pursuers, who now had got to their feet, fired
+at him as they stood. The big man stumbled, recovered, and
+was gone into the recess. And the riflemen resumed, at a
+walk, their tracking. Then the bank of mist settled over
+Logan’s head and lower into the valley, cutting Logan off
+from sight of whatever was happening below. He heard
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>two more shots, though; and then silence followed. Through
+all this, no human voice had drifted up to him.</p>
+
+<p>Logan clung astonished to his perch. Here in Carnglass
+were wheels within wheels. He had suspected something
+was amiss in the island: but to discover, as if he were an
+Olympian looking down upon the follies of humankind,
+this curious sport of island man-hunting was bewildering
+even to Hugh Logan, who had been around. This, after all,
+was a small corner of Great Britain, in the year of Our Lord
+one thousand nine hundred and sixty. In Mutto’s Wynd,
+his own struggle with Jock Anderson’s gang conceivably
+might have been only a chance encounter; and even if it
+had been part of someone’s design, no more had been
+meant, perhaps, than a brutal robbery. The sinister-ludicrous
+figure of Captain Gare had come to him at
+Oban through no chance encounter, but that insubstantial
+personality had vanished before a little chaffing. This
+affair in the valley of Carnglass was deadly serious—this
+stalking of a man as if he were a rabbit. And Logan had not
+the faintest notion of what pursuers and pursued might be.</p>
+
+<p>So what should he do now? The mist, reinforced by a
+light rain, had become so dense below him that the remaining
+descent of the cliff, in these conditions, would be almost
+foolhardy until some sunlight worked its way through. In
+any event, what with this delay, it seemed improbable that
+he could make his way to the Old House before sunset.
+And, judging from the silent hunters far below, to knock
+at the gate of the Old House after sunset might be highly
+imprudent. Logan did not relish the thought of being
+taken for the big man with the pistol, supposing that person
+still to be in the land of the living. Besides, the quarry
+might be doubling back across the valley by this time, and
+for Logan to descend unknown into that scene from the
+Inferno, with bullets flying, wasn’t the best policy for a
+rising man of law. Everything considered, he had better
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>creep back along the dim path to Dalcruach, and there
+spend another night in the black house, even though this
+must mean he had taken a full week to reach Lady MacAskival.
+He could make a safer start early in the morning;
+perhaps Lady MacAskival’s demoniac gillies did not hunt
+before breakfast. And there was a queasy feeling at the
+pit of his stomach. It was thoroughly improbable that any
+man would try to make his way over the cliff to Dalcruach
+this evening, what with fog, wind, and the clammy emptiness
+of the dead clachan in the cul-de-sac.</p>
+
+<p>So Logan, still marvelling, shuffled carefully back toward
+Dalcruach, where he could enjoy the peat fire, and eat his
+remaining sandwiches, and write some memoir of this past
+week to post to Duncan MacAskival when the business
+was accomplished. He had found a kerosene lamp on one of
+the shelves, with fuel still in it. He might even read a bit
+in old Balmullo, for the sake of settling his nerves. Though
+the hasp was torn loose, the heavy door could be barred
+from within by a balk of sea-worn timber that fitted into
+holes on either side of the door-frame; and Logan did bar
+it. Now no one could get at him suddenly except through
+the thatch of the roof. And if folk outside did not know
+Logan to be unarmed, they would think twice about bursting
+blindly through the roof. Lighting the lamp, Logan
+took some sheets of paper—somewhat blurred and dampened
+by water—from a pad in his pack, settled himself at
+the table, and began to write with his ball-point pen.</p>
+
+<p>He would save the sandwiches until he had finished writing.
+He was hungry, though; and despite the moist air,
+his throat felt dry. Logan put down his pen, threw his oilskin
+over his shoulders, and went out to the spring that
+bubbled only ten yards from the door. Coming back with
+a full pail, he drank deep and put the rest of the water—tasting
+faintly of peat—by the shelves. He drew up the
+chair and resumed his writing.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>Then a deep voice spoke behind him. “Will you be
+a writer, or a philosophist?” the voice said.</p>
+
+<p>Upsetting his chair, Logan sprang nimbly round to face
+the voice. He saw a very big man in a drenched ragged overcoat;
+and in the man’s massive fist was a little old pistol,
+held steadily. The big man was bareheaded and bald-headed:
+a sloping dome of a head, with strong flattish
+features, battered and seared, and a broad, full-lipped
+mouth. Blood was caked all down one cheek of that hard
+face, and seemed still to be oozing from a gash high on the
+bald skull, where a little flap of skin fell away from the
+bone.</p>
+
+<p>Logan’s visitor stood gigantic in the shadows, close by
+the boxed bed; probably he had hidden there. “Don’t
+move your hands,” the deep voice said. “I’m Seamus
+Donley: so don’t move your hands. I said to you, ‘Will you
+be a writer, or a philosophist?’ Or, now, will you be a
+police-detective?”</p>
+
+<p>Immobile, Logan thought he detected some humor in
+that wide mouth. “Good evening, Mr. Donley,” Logan
+said. “Put away that toy, and eat a sandwich with me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Turn round, Mr. Police-Detective,” Donley told him,
+“and hold your hands high.” There was nothing else Logan
+could do; besides, if the man had meant to shoot him in
+the back, he could have done that already. Donley’s rough
+hands ran over and into Logan’s pockets. “Now where
+might your gun be, Mr. Police-Detective? Your friend
+Seamus has looked in your rucksack and in the bed already.”
+This was a wild Irishman: the brogue was pronounced,
+and possibly a little exaggerated, as if Donley
+strove for effect.</p>
+
+<p>“I have no gun, Mr. Donley.”</p>
+
+<p>“Swing round again and let me look at you,” Donley
+grunted. He had stepped back a pace, by way of precaution,
+but in the lamp-light Logan saw clearly enough the reckless,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span>not ill-natured face of a man in late middle age; and
+below that face an immense barrel-chest and powerful arms.
+The gun man must stand nearly six feet six. “Faith,”
+Donley went on, “I come near to believing you. You’ve
+the look of innocence. But whatever were they thinking of
+to send an acolyte of a police-detective after Jackman’s
+fellows? Now listen to me, Mr. Police-Detective: if you’ve
+a gun about you, fetch it out, for you need it as much as
+yours truly, Seamus Donley. Would the lads in the Republican
+Army ever have believed that old Seamus should
+be asking a police-detective to help him? Sure, it’s your
+life, man, as much as mine. We can’t tell but Jackman’s
+chaps might be at the door this living minute.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t understand you, Mr. Donley, and I didn’t bring
+a gun.”</p>
+
+<p>Donley scowled. “Saints in heaven! Now’s no time for
+playing little games, Mr. Police-Detective. This is not
+London. Those fellows would put you over the cliff as
+quick as myself. That’s what they did with Lagg; but you
+can’t know that. You know me: any police-detective knows
+Seamus Donley, that lay in Derry gaol four hard years,
+breaking out last Christmas. Do you think it’s myself would
+be telling you my own name, and showing you my own face,
+if we’d no need for standing back to back? A fine young
+police-detective you are! Here, now: I’ll send Meg to bed.”
+He thrust the gun back inside his coat. “There, I’m trusting
+you, Mr. Police-Detective, and you must be after trusting
+me. We’ll put out the light, for ’tis a standing invite
+to Jackman and his bully boys.” Donley blew out the wick.
+“And we’ll trample the turfs.” Donley crushed under his
+boots most of the peats, and tossed ashes over the rest of
+the fire, leaving only a faint glow. “These three days gone,
+Mr. Police-Detective, Jackman’s gang have let me be after
+dark, but they might change; and there’s others might
+come.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>Logan groped about the table in the dark. “I’m afraid
+I can’t offer you much refreshment, Seamus Donley, but
+there are two sandwiches left, and most of a bottle of
+whiskey. Why do you take me for a detective?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’d have eaten and drunk your victuals before now,
+Mr. Police-Detective, but you gave me no time. I’d but a
+moment to slip through your door and into your bed while
+you were at the well. A fine young police-detective you are!
+But Donley’s not the man to let his host go hungry.” He
+handed back half a sandwich to Logan, wolfing the others.
+“And the poteen: that’s the medicine for myself when I’ve
+been three days and nights in caves and bogs. One morning
+I caught a rabbit and ate it raw, and another time I cut a
+sheep’s throat and had a supper of the bloody ribs; but for
+the rest, it was birds’ eggs got on the cliffs and sucked on
+the run, and a few shellfish I pulled from the rocks on this
+very beach.”</p>
+
+<p>Logan—his eyes had adjusted fairly well to the dark now—brought
+two tumblers from the shelves and filled them
+with whiskey. “Your health, Mr. Seamus Donley.”</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman chuckled. “There’s this to be said, young
+fellow my lad: you’re a cool police-detective. And how do
+I know you’re a police-detective? Why, what else might
+you be? It’s not an Englishman that you are, though—there’s
+that for you. I’m thinking you’ll be an Edinburgh
+man.”</p>
+
+<p>He might get more information out of Donley, Logan reflected,
+if he did not try to dispel this illusion. “More
+whiskey, Mr. Donley? Of course. And what is it I can do
+for you?”</p>
+
+<p>Donley drained at a gulp his second tumbler of whiskey.
+He had taken a chair opposite Logan, and sat relaxed,
+though watchful: a hardened customer. “Why, just this,
+Mr. Police-Detective: first we’ll take those oars of yours
+out of this hovel, and then we’ll launch that boat of yours
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>between the two of us, with myself inside, and then it’s
+Seamus for Scotland and Mr. Police-Detective back to his
+but-and-ben in Carnglass—back to Hell, that is.”</p>
+
+<p>Upon the thatch the rain fell heavily now, and the wind
+has risen. “You have turned daft, Seamus Donley,” Logan
+said. “Listen to that wind. You’d never get over the
+skerries in that little old boat this night, let alone row to
+the mainland. Daldour would be the best you might hope
+for.”</p>
+
+<p>“Daldour?” Donley snorted. “And land among the
+heathens? Why not the Cannibal Isles? Besides, there I
+would rot in Daldour till you, Mr. Police-Detective, might
+choose to come for me in the police-launch. No, it’s not
+Derry gaol for Seamus. It’s a Kerry man I am, and as good
+a boatman as any in these islands—born by Bantry Bay.
+No, I’ll be hid in Glasgow or Birmingham or Liverpool
+before you report to the Chief Constable, my boy—supposing
+that ever you get clear from Carnglass, which I do very
+much misdoubt.”</p>
+
+<p>“If you must be fool enough to go boating this night,
+Mr. Donley, then wait an hour on the chance of the
+wind falling. The boat’s light enough for you and me to
+get her afloat, even so: the tide must be up beyond her
+now. The risk of this wind is greater than the risk of low
+water on the skerries.”</p>
+
+<p>Bending forward, Donley gave Logan a light approving
+tap on the shoulder. “For a police-detective, you’re a
+decent sort. What would your name be?”</p>
+
+<p>Logan told him.</p>
+
+<p>“See here, Mr. Detective Logan: I’ll wait that hour, but
+no more. Never would I have guessed a police-detective
+would have a regard for Seamus Donley’s skin. And see
+here: you’d best come with me. If you’ll give myself your
+word of honor bright—you’re no Englishman, that I’ll say—to
+grant myself twelve hours pursuit-free once we set
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>foot ashore, then it’s Seamus who’ll set you in Scotland
+safe, Mr. Scots Detective, and shake your hand at parting.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, thank you, Seamus Donley,” Logan answered,
+“but I’ve business in Carnglass. Lady MacAskival will see
+that I get to Oban or Glasgow, when the business is done.”</p>
+
+<p>“Lady MacAskival! Do you think they’d let you see her,
+or that the Old One gives orders today? And even were
+they all saints in Carnglass, they’ve no boat to put at the
+service of one Mr. Logan, Police-Detective, with a face
+like the cherubim. Was it not my fire that fetched you
+here?”</p>
+
+<p>“What fire?”</p>
+
+<p>A note of pique came into Donley’s voice. “Then you
+will have known of Jackman’s doings earlier, and I’ve had
+half my labor in vain. I might have told Jackman that
+what with his crew, the police were sure to find him out.
+’Tis this: I burnt the yacht and wrecked the launch three
+nights gone. That was for spiting and hindering Jackman.
+And I had hopes of folk spying the fire and sending word
+to shore.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then they’ve had no communication with the mainland
+for three days?” This, Logan thought, could explain
+the confusion of Dowie and Gare.</p>
+
+<p>“Three days? What with the storm, Jackman’s sent no
+messages, nor got any, all this week. The wireless is a
+wreck. Jackman will be raging like an imp from the Pit,
+that oily limb of Satan. Oh, he’ll be cursing the day he
+crossed Seamus Donley.”</p>
+
+<p>He might worm the whole story gradually out of Donley,
+Logan hoped: it was clear enough that Donley assumed he
+already knew a good deal of it. “Tell me this, Mr. Donley,
+while we’re waiting here: what state are matters in at the
+Old House?”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you take me for an informer?” The heavy voice,
+there in the smoky darkness, took on an ominous tone. It
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>never would do to forget that Donley must be a thoroughly
+dangerous man.</p>
+
+<p>“I take you for a man who’s been tricked, Mr. Seamus
+Donley, and who needs what aid he can find. While we’re
+on that topic, I’ll do what I can for that bloody spot on
+your head. Did a bullet come close to finishing you?” A
+little light shone from the peats, and by it Logan set to
+washing the wound and bandaging it with two clean handkerchiefs
+from his knapsack. Donley, gritting his teeth,
+seemed to trust Logan sufficiently to let him do the job,
+though he kept one hand upon the pistol within his coat.
+Logan put back the flap of skin upon the skull and improvised
+a kind of scarf-bandage that probably would not
+endure long; he washed the caked blood from Donley’s
+lined face.</p>
+
+<p>“No, that was a damned fall this afternoon, when Ferd
+was shooting at me, Mr. Detective Logan. In all my years
+with the I.R.A., I never came so close to my end. But I’ll
+even scores, trust Seamus for that.”</p>
+
+<p>The man had not winced much during the bandaging.
+“Keep your hand in, my boy, and in no time you’ll be as
+fine a doctor as any at Dublin, or as Jackman himself. Jackman
+will be no true physician, but I’ll not need to be telling
+you that, Mr. Police-Detective. ’Tis a doctor of philosophy
+he’ll be, University of Leningrad, or Moscow. Yet
+I’m not the man to be stinting anyone of his praise: Jackman’s
+clever with splints and medicines, and all else under
+the sun. A clever child, Edmund Jackman. Jackman it was
+that drew me out of Derry gaol, he having use for me.
+Jackman it was, sure, but not for Seamus’ sake. For doing
+the Devil’s work, there’ll be none better than Jackman.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what,” Logan continued as he adjusted the clumsy
+bandage, “is life like at the Old House?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, now, Mr. Detective Logan, do you mind that bit
+in Dante’s Inferno where old Dante and Vergil observe the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>stewing of the frauds in the chasms? That’ll be your reception
+at the Old House, and if you’ve a brain in your
+skull, Mr. Logan, you’ll be jumping into the little boat
+with Seamus and making for your headquarters. You’ll
+require a dozen constables with rifles, or more, to take
+Jackman’s gang.”</p>
+
+<p>Despite his brogue—which, Logan suspected, was in part
+the affectation of a virulent Irish nationalist, or of whimsy—Donley
+had not spoken like an unschooled man; and this
+literary allusion confirmed Logan’s surmise. “I think you’re
+what you Irish call a ‘spiled praist,’ Seamus Donley.”</p>
+
+<p>“Sure, never a praist,” Donley answered, grinning, “not
+myself. Yet I had some inclination after being a monk,
+and a lay-brother I was for nine praying months, in Sligo,
+till the love of the drink and the love of the girls undid me.
+Jackman was after calling me ‘Father Seamus’: he’s eyes
+in his head, more eyes by one than most men. His boy Ferd
+was for giving me a third eye for myself.” Here the gunman
+gingerly touched his bandaged forehead. “Ferd will be the
+deadliest of Jackman’s imps, as you’ll find to your sorrow;
+do you watch sharp for him. ’Tis the Maltese Cat I call
+him. Swift with a gun, and swift with a knife. And Jackman
+sent him to the Old One for a cook at the Old House! Ferd
+has virtue as a cook, no denying: the father of him keeps a
+little eating-house in Soho. But Ferd’s better at murthering
+than cooking.”</p>
+
+<p>“How many others are in the Old House?”</p>
+
+<p>Again Donley filled his tumbler of whiskey. “Jackman
+himself, and that walking cadaver Royall, that he calls his
+secretary—the only other political man in the lot. Then
+there will be five manservants, or a set of cutthroats that
+Jackman pawned off on the Old One for servants: butler,
+footman, gardener, gardener’s boy (a broth of a boy!) and a
+fellow that passes for stableman or cowman. I was the keeper
+or gillie. Then there are three men for the yacht and the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>launch, all Jackman’s pick: I singed the whiskers of one of
+them, Harry Till, a Liverpool longshoreman, and he may
+be at death’s door, praise be to the saints. Because Jackman
+told them so, the Old One and the Young One turned off
+all the old servants, even the laborers at the farm; Lagg
+sent his wife back to Galloway, and at the end, he was living
+in a room or two by himself at the New House. Except
+for the Old One and the Young One, there’s but one
+woman in Carnglass, and that’s a poor shawlie, old Agnes
+with the arthritis, fit for no better than scrubbing floors
+and carrying trays to the Old One. So the odds will be ten
+or eleven to one against Mr. Police-Detective, as they’ve
+been against myself these three days past. Come away, Mr.
+Detective Logan: yourself would last two days less than
+Seamus has.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you mean that Lagg is dead?”</p>
+
+<p>Donley shifted uneasily. “Mind this, Mr. Logan: ’tis no
+doing of mine. What could be done to help Lagg, the old
+toad, I did. Nor did I see him die. They took him beyond
+the Chapel, to the highest of the cliffs, and they did not
+bring him back. ’Twas Seamus was meant to do the job,
+but I was one too many for even Dr. Edmund Jackman.
+Should ever there be a trial, and should yourself and myself
+come alive out of this, Mr. Logan, you’ll bear that in
+memory.”</p>
+
+<p>“If I’m to bear witness for you, Seamus, perhaps you’ll
+tell me the details of your part in the business.”</p>
+
+<p>Donley sighed. “Never did I think myself would turn
+informer, but that comes of the keeping of ill company.
+Not that Jackman and Royall will be common criminals:
+they’re uncommon enough. The rest will not be politicals,
+only hard cases that Jackman has some clutch upon. As for
+myself, Mr. Detective Logan, I never took a penny that
+was not mine, unless on Army orders.”</p>
+
+<p>Getting up abruptly, Donley went to the door and put
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>his ear against it. “The wind is high still,” he said, “and
+sure they never will come to us in such dark as this—not
+Jackman’s town crew. But ’tis my nerves that are on edge,
+Mr. Logan: three days with next to nothing in my belly,
+mind, so that there have been times when I thought more
+people than Jackman’s were walking in Carnglass. A
+damned island. Well, then, my autobiography, or a bit of
+it, Mr. Police-Detective. Much good may the telling of it
+do you, or myself.” Thrusting his chair toward the
+smouldering fire, Donley warmed his boots. What little
+light there was played upon his scarred face. And Hugh
+Logan listened.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">5</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>“Belfast it was where I met with Davie Anderson,” Donley
+began, “a Glasgow razor-slasher of blasphemous conversation.
+Taking up with him was folly, Mr. Logan, but I’d
+small choice. The Republican Army—mollycoddles they
+are these days, to a man—would do nothing for me but
+hide me a week or two, and that with ill grace.</p>
+
+<p>“‘You’re impulsive, Donley,’ said they to me. I do believe
+they wished me back in Derry gaol. And who was it
+that blew the bridge ten years past? And who was it that
+was at the lighting of the fires in Belfast, to show the
+Luftwaffe where to drop their bombs? Why, Seamus
+Donley, none other. The Germans were nothing to myself,
+nor Jackman and his politics, neither; but it was
+enough for me that the English would catch it.</p>
+
+<p>“No, the I.R.A. never sent the files that took me out of
+Derry gaol, nor the money, nor the motorcar, though at
+the time I took it for their work. Jackman it was: Jackman
+knew Seamus Donley for a man to handle the explosives.”
+He poured more whiskey.</p>
+
+<p>“When Davie Anderson came to me, I said I would do
+Jackman’s work for Jackman’s pay. A month ago it was that
+they brought me to Carnglass, and made me gamekeeper,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span>and showed me the explosives, and told me the work I was
+to do, when the time came. Davie Anderson! Davie Anderson!
+Once let me come in reach of you, Davie Anderson,
+and you’ll seduce no more honest rebels.”</p>
+
+<p>“Does Davie Anderson have a brother Jock, in the
+Gallowgate of Glasgow?” Logan put in.</p>
+
+<p>“That has he, Mr. Detective Logan. I perceive you’re
+not so innocent as you seem, not by half. A bad case,
+either Davie or Jock, like all Jackman’s lot. Nine-tenths
+criminals, and but one-tenth politicals. And that political
+tenth not my patriotic politics. ’Tis a rough life I’ve led,
+Mr. Logan, and I’m no man for small scruples. But needless
+murthering, unpolitical murthering, never suited my
+fancy. And in the murthering of women I will have no part,
+not even the murthering of old witches. And Jackman’s
+plan it was, or I’m a Black and Tan, to lay the slaughter to
+Seamus Donley’s account.”</p>
+
+<p>“What good would killing women be to Jackman?”
+Logan asked.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s no need for you to play the cherub with me,
+Mr. Police-Detective. ’Twas the money, of course: all that
+money. ’Tis not for his own self’s sake Jackman seeks the
+money, but to ingratiate himself again with his party. Sure,
+and didn’t they cast him out for a premature deviationist,
+and for the wild things he’d done? But the money, and the
+spying about the islands, and the explosives under the new
+installations—faith, if that thing might be done, the party
+would take him back, soon enough. A risky work it is, but
+if Jackman does it well, all’s kisses. And the party is all
+Jackman’s life, he being a political through and through:
+that I’ll say for him. Jackman and his boys never told me,
+for never did they trust me, nor I them. But I’ve eyes in
+my head, Mr. Detective Logan, and a brain for right reasoning.
+When the time came, the women must die. And if ever
+it came to the prisoner in the box, who would they have
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>for scapegoat? Why, old Seamus Donley, that’s a fugitive
+from English justice.”</p>
+
+<p>“And did Lagg know of this?”</p>
+
+<p>“Tam Lagg took Jackman’s money two years and more.
+Yet the murthering never came into Lagg’s thick wits, I do
+believe, until a month ago. To help Jackman to bully the
+Old One into making him her heir was one thing; to plot
+murther was another. And treason, too. Lagg’s was no
+stomach for such tactics. But where could Tam Lagg turn?
+He could not get ashore, nor even post a letter, without
+Jackman’s leave. When Lagg saw what I had seen, and
+thought the thoughts I had thought—concerning the plot
+for murther, I mean—he took fright. Jackman sees through
+a man as if flesh were glass, and Jackman will have known
+this month past that Lagg could be trusted no more.</p>
+
+<p>“Then Jackman was the cat, and Lagg the mouse. And
+Jackman and his boys watched Lagg by day and by night.
+When they caught Lagg lighting the fire behind the hill,
+they made an end of him.”</p>
+
+<p>“What sort of fire, Donley?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, the fire that might have been seen by folk in
+Daldour, to bring them over from curiosity; but it never
+came to a blaze. That afternoon I sat by my cottage at the
+New House, mending rabbit-snares—for they had lodged
+me in the keeper’s cottage, as if they feared to have me
+much about the Old House, near the gelignite—when Jackman
+came striding up, and with him Royall and Davie
+Anderson and Rab, that holy terror of a boy. Three days
+ago it was, but for old Seamus it seems like three years,
+what with the hiding and the running and the starving
+since.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Donley,’ Jackman says to me, in his quiet wicked way,
+‘come along. We’re hunting today.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Then I’ll be wanting my shotgun, Dr. Jackman,’ I
+say to him. But he shakes his misbegotten head.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>“‘No, Donley, you old ruffian,’ says he, ‘we’ve guns
+enough for this hunting of ours.’ And I see that Rab and
+Davie have rifles slung over their shoulders. Jackman himself
+carries no weapon ever, they say; and sure I’ve not seen
+him with any. ’Tis terror that he carries.</p>
+
+<p>“So up I get, as you see me now, bareheaded and in
+my coat, and tramp round with Jackman and his boys to
+the shoulder of the hill they call Mucaird, and over the
+shoulder till we come close up to the broken farmhouse
+there. And from within the house, smoke is beginning to
+rise.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Hush, gentlemen,’ whispers Jackman. ‘We must not
+disturb the factor at his little games.’ In through the empty
+doorway we creep; and there crouches that fat toad Lagg,
+his back to us, feeding a fire in a corner, pouring petrol on
+a heap of trash, so as to set the whole ruin ablaze. A noble
+beacon it would have made.</p>
+
+<p>“Jackman grins his devil-grin. ‘Good day, Mr. Lagg,’
+says he. ‘You’re a warm friend, Mr. Lagg.’</p>
+
+<p>“Tam Lagg squeals like a pig when you come with the
+butchering-knife, and jumps round: a gross ugly man in
+corduroys, his face red and puffy always, but now white as
+a cadaver’s. ‘Dr. Jackman!’ he squeals. ‘Dr. Jackman!’ And
+he can say no more, for there is no more to be said.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Yes, your old patron, Dr. Jackman,’ that Beelzebub
+tells him. ‘I assume that you’re weary of our company,
+Mr. Lagg.’ Davie and Rab tramp out the fire in the damp
+roofless room, while Lagg crouches by the wall like a
+trapped hare.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Even the fondest of friends must part, Mr. Lagg,’ says
+Jackman, cheery as a cat with a rotten mackerel, ‘and
+you’re come to the end of your tether, my good and faithful
+servant.’ Then Davie and Rab take Lagg by the arms
+and fling him upon the rubbish, and Davie unslings his
+rifle.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>“‘For God’s sake, Dr. Jackman,’ says Lagg, puffing and
+weeping, ‘I’ve an auld wifie in Galloway, by Gatehouse of
+Fleet, and four bairns. And this is a civilized land.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Why, Donley’s compatriots have a phrase that fits your
+situation, Mr. Lagg,’ smiles Jackman. ‘“What’s all the
+world to a man,” the Irish say, “when his wife’s a widdy?”
+You’ll never be missed, Lagg. You’ll have been lost at sea,
+merrily fishing. These are wild waters round Carnglass.
+And as for civilized lands—why, “had ye been where I ha’
+been, and seen wha’ I ha’ seen”—eh, Thomas Lagg? This is
+the end of an old refrain for you. I never took to your red
+face. And even if I wished to spare you, still there would
+be the problem of morale among my associates here,
+wouldn’t there? There’s nothing like an execution or two
+to encourage the others. And Lady MacAskival will be so
+obliging as to write to the police concerning your sad disappearance
+at sea.’ He’s in love with dying—other men’s dying—is
+Jackman.</p>
+
+<p>“It came to me then, Mr. Logan, that when my usefulness
+to Jackman was done, Jackman and his boys would
+crowd old Seamus into some such corner. There’s no honor
+among the lot of them. Lagg and Seamus were outsiders.
+And that man Lagg did cry so, lying there in the smouldering
+rubbish. David pokes him with the muzzle of his rifle,
+and Jackman gloats, like a sloat down a rabbit’s burrow.
+I was standing behind the crowd of them. ‘Though the
+creature’s a Presbyterian,’ I say to Jackman, ‘at the least
+you’ll grant him a moment for his prayers.’ And that said,
+I whisk out Meg here.” Donley patted the revolver inside
+his coat. “Jackman’s lot never had known I kept Meg under
+my arm.</p>
+
+<p>“They all turn to face me, Davie with the rifle half
+raised. ‘Davie Anderson,’ say I, ‘drop it!’ And Davie lets
+the gun fall, for he knows the reputation of Seamus Donley.
+Rab’s rifle is slung over his shoulder; Royall’s pistol is in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>his pocket. Yet it is four to one. Jackman’s devil-grin never
+changes.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Why, Father Seamus,’ he says, genteel as Brian Boru,
+‘I presume you aspire to the role of confessor.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘No, I’m no priest, Jackman,’ say I. ‘Yet you’ll have the
+grace to grant Lagg a moment for repentance, or ’tis myself
+will have another Englishman’s life on my conscience.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘I’ll humor your piety, Father Seamus,’ Jackman says,
+though his black eyes are like hell-coals. ‘Mr. Lagg, to your
+devotions.’</p>
+
+<p>“Lagg grovels in the dirt, moaning; and if he prays, the
+words run all together; and as for myself, I am too bent on
+watching Jackman and the rest to listen to him. A long
+minute it was, Mr. Logan.</p>
+
+<p>“Jackman looks at his wrist-watch. ‘<i>Pax vobiscum</i>,’ says
+he, ever so sneering. ‘And now, Father Seamus, seeing that
+you have your little gun conveniently in your Fenian paw,
+perhaps you will be so kind as to administer the <i>coup de
+grace</i> to our old comrade here.’ The eyes of those four
+murtherers are turned on myself like dogs round a badger.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Jackman,’ I tell him, ‘may I screech in Hell if I lift a
+finger in this bloody business.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Perhaps, in any event, Mr. Lagg would prefer a cold
+plunge,’ Jackman says, smoothly. Lagg does no more than
+look at me, gasping and choking, as if I were the king of
+glory. But the odds are four to one, Mr. Logan, and Seamus
+has himself to think of, and Lagg was a tricky old toad.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Being but one man, Jackman,’ say I, ‘I cannot hinder
+you. Yet you’ll not harm the rascal in my sight.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘As you wish, Reverend Father.’ And Jackman nods to
+Rab and Davie. They take Lagg by the arms, he screaming
+out my name the while, and drag him through the doorway;
+and Royall picks up Davie’s rifle, though careful not
+to lift it high nor point it toward old Seamus. ‘Donley,’
+Jackman murmurs, as he follows them out the door, ‘go
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>back to your cottage. You and I must have a serious conversation
+later.’</p>
+
+<p>“And they lead Lagg along the hill toward St. Merin’s
+Chapel and the cliffs, he weak as water, while I watch them
+from an empty window, being cautious not to show much
+of myself, lest Rab or Davie be inclined toward a lucky
+shot. And soon the bracken swallows them. Seamus has
+given Tam Lagg his minute of grace, and now Lagg must
+give Seamus Donley his hour for action.</p>
+
+<p>“Jackman is cunning, think I to myself; but this once
+he’s reckoned without his man. There were two things
+that I might try: first, to get clean away from Carnglass,
+which would leave Jackman with no good hand for the
+explosives, and no scapegoat; or second, to send up a
+signal like the signal Lagg meant to make of that farmhouse,
+to call heed to strange doings in Carnglass. Now
+being a runaway gaolbird, I preferred the first method,
+Mr. Logan; and besides, ’tis the surer method; and it might
+save the women, since what with Seamus gone to the mainland
+and talking with whom he might, sure Jackman would
+think twice before doing more murther.</p>
+
+<p>“So soon, then, as Jackman and the rest were out of sight,
+I ran down the track toward the New House and Askival
+harbor—and the boats. Two craft there were in the harbor,
+both Lady MacAskival’s, though she’d scant need of them
+for her own self: a sixty-foot sailing yacht, old but with an
+auxiliary engine, and a fast motor-launch, half decked.
+Could I but get aboard either, and take it out of harbor—the
+motor-launch would be the better—I might make land
+somewhere and be out of sight before either Jackman or
+you darling police might say Daniel O’Connell.</p>
+
+<p>“But somewhere there would be seven more of Jackman’s
+boys: Sam Tompkins, a Cockney, with the grand
+title of butler—though he’s little better than a pickpocket,
+and not to be dreaded; Ferd, the Cat o’ Malta; a tinker-like
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>fellow called Niven, that they’d made gardener; a Lancashire
+rough, Simmons, the stableman. Then the three
+boatmen, all out of Liverpool: Jim Powert, Harry Till, and
+Bill Carruthers. If the gang should be at the Old House,
+all of them, well and good: I never would try for the Old
+House, that being a strong place with but one gate. And if
+there should be but a man or two at the harbor, my little
+Meg and myself, between the two of us, might do their
+business. Now I’d a shotgun at my cottage, and like enough
+Lagg had a gun or two in the New House, unless Jackman
+had taken precautions. A shotgun or a rifle in the hands of
+such a one as myself is worth half a dozen men, Mr. Detective
+Logan, as I fancy you’ve heard tell. So it was to my
+cottage that I ran first, not looking back toward St. Merin’s
+Chapel, nor liking to think what might be done there on
+the cliffs.</p>
+
+<p>“All the way, I met no man. And my cottage was empty;
+but the shotgun was gone. ‘Oho,’ say I to myself, ‘then
+Jackman will have a suspicion of old Seamus, and will have
+left orders to keep a weather eye on him.’ I stuffed my
+coat pockets with biscuits from a tin, for there was no saying
+when I might dine again; and then, very quiet, I had
+a look about the New House, which has a little fir-plantation
+between it and the gamekeeper’s cottage.</p>
+
+<p>“As bad cess would have it, three men—Ferd, and Niven,
+and Simmons—came out of the back gate of the New House
+when I looked that way from the firs. They not spying me,
+I knelt there silent, and they walked on toward the Old
+House, having locked the door behind them. Simmons was
+carrying my own shotgun. These are dull dogs, Mr. Logan,
+with no talent for hide-and-seek—though Ferd is sharp
+enough, but being a Soho spiv, he’s out of his element in
+Carnglass. Once they were gone, I trotted on to the harbor,
+just beyond the New House; they would have taken the
+guns from the New House, for Ferd and Niven, too, had
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>been carrying weapons. Now it must be the boats for
+Seamus Donley, with no help but little Meg. The night was
+coming down, praise be, and I might creep along the quay
+safe enough, keeping behind a little low breakwater that
+has a walk between it and the outer edge of the quay.</p>
+
+<p>“On the yacht a light was burning, and she lay hard up
+against the stone quay, with the launch moored just beyond
+her. Two men were on deck, worse luck, and there might
+be a third below; I thought I heard his voice. And one of
+the men—Powert, I thought—had a rifle across his knees as
+he sat there. ‘Seamus,’ say I in my head, ‘this must be
+neatly done, if ’tis to be done at all.’ So back along the
+quay to the harbor-head I make my way, like a mouse,
+and to the shed by the quayside. They had forgot to lock
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>“Now if I might keep the men aboard the yacht with
+their hands full of work, I might hope to take the launch;
+or, failing that, I might burn both boats, making a beacon
+to be seen in Daldour or out to sea, and vexing Jackman’s
+damned soul. In the shed, along with ropes and paints and
+such, I found what I had hoped for, a tin of petrol and a
+brace of empty bottles. And there were some oily bits of
+waste and rags on the floor. You’ll have made a Molotov
+cocktail, Mr. Detective Logan? Now that would have been
+a fine present for Dr. Jackman, considering his political
+tastes; but I hadn’t the proper ingredients. And the
+real explosives were tucked away at the Old House, beyond
+my reach. So the bottles filled with petrol, and the waste
+and rags stuffed into the mouths, would have to serve me.
+The matches I already had in my pocket.</p>
+
+<p>“With the bottles in my coat, back I go along the quay,
+keeping out of sight. But close to the yacht, my foot strikes
+a stone, that tumbles into the harbor with a splash. Powert
+and Carruthers, sitting on deck, seem to be nervous as pregnant
+cats, for Powert springs up with his rifle and calls out,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>‘Who’s there?’ And he catches a glimpse of my bald head
+above the dyke. ‘Donley,’ he sings, ‘if that’s you, show yourself.’</p>
+
+<p>“What with Powert’s rifle in his hands, it was a risky
+stratagem. Yet I bob up from behind the dyke and lob
+the first burning bottle right for the open hatch, Powert
+firing at me on the moment. Powert misses, but the bottle
+sails true. Right down the companionway it falls, and in a
+second flames come bursting up. And up comes another
+thing: Till, who has been below decks. I see him as I toss
+the second bottle. His hair and shirt are all afire, and him
+screaming like a mad thing.</p>
+
+<p>“The second bottle goes down the hatch, too, and more
+flames shoot up; and then Carruthers takes panic and dives
+over the side into the harbor, for I have lugged out Meg
+and sent a shot across the deck. Powert runs aft for a fire-extinguisher,
+while Till rolls screaming by the deck-house;
+but I try another shot at Powert, and he follows Carruthers
+over the side, rifle and all, though I do not think I hit
+him. If those three had kept their heads about them, they
+could have put out the flames, but now it is too late. And
+now Seamus will have his try at the launch; for below decks
+in the yacht, the fire from the spattered petrol is gaining
+fine. Powert and Carruthers will have struck out for the far
+side of the harbor, not liking the bark of little old Meg in
+my paw.</p>
+
+<p>“It was down the slimy old quayside steps and into the
+launch I went then. Ferd and the rest from the Old House
+would be upon me in a matter of minutes, seeing the fire
+from the yacht; and then, too, the yacht might explode, if
+there were fuel in her tanks, though she did not burn so
+hard and fast as I might have liked. The mist being heavy
+that night, it was odds against the fire being seen from land,
+unless from Daldour, for Askival harbor lies snug among
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>the cliffs; and the weather was too much for any chance
+aircraft.</p>
+
+<p>“I tried the engine of the launch, but she was as dead as
+Lagg must be. It may be they had taken the plug, or
+tampered with the wires, Jackman being a man of forethought.
+Be it whatever, Mr. Logan, I could do nothing
+with her. If there had been even oars, I would have put to
+sea with no motor; but the launch was too big for rowing.
+One thing I did find in the bows, for all that: a spanner.
+‘Well, Seamus,’ I think, ‘if you’re not to have her, no more
+shall they.’ And with that spanner I did abuse the engine
+so that no man might mend it, paying no heed to the noise
+I made.</p>
+
+<p>“On the yacht’s deck, Till had made an end of his moaning,
+and I could not see him; like enough he had fallen
+overboard, which he should have done the moment my
+bottle set him afire. But I could hear feet running and
+voices near the harbor-head.</p>
+
+<p>“With the tide ebbing, it came to my mind that if I were
+to cast off, the current might carry the launch toward the
+harbor-mouth, perhaps close enough to the other side of
+the harbor that I might leap ashore dry. So I cut the painter
+with my clasp-knife, and no sooner than was needful. The
+tide began to take the launch the few rods between me and
+the harbor-mouth. But now four or five men were on the
+quay I had left, and two rifles were firing. They hit the
+launch sure enough, and put holes in her, like enough—but
+not in Seamus Donley. The blessed dark that preserved me!
+In no time at all the launch had drifted right up against
+the further quay, on her way to the harbor-mouth, and I
+had hold of an iron ladder that’s fixed in the stones, and up
+I went.</p>
+
+<p>“As for the launch, she will have drifted out with the
+tide, and sunk, what with the holes in her, for when I
+looked down toward the harbor from the cliffs the next
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>morning, there was no trace of her. You can trust Seamus
+for a job of sabotage.</p>
+
+<p>“But there was no time for self-congratulations, Mr.
+Logan. They would have seen me get ashore again, even
+in the fog, and would be at my heels. The best route for
+myself was the low ground between the Old House and the
+empty cottages at Duncambus, and then up to the caves in
+the cliffs. Oh, I knew the island of Carnglass, what with
+shooting rabbits and birds over the best part of it, while I
+played at keeper. There was but one hope for Seamus left,
+and that was the coming of some one in a boat, such as
+yourself.</p>
+
+<p>“A man or two set out after me, I think, and there was
+shooting in the dark; but I showed them my heels, and
+made my way up the north cliffs; yet a climb it was that
+none but a drunken man, or a desperate one, would undertake.
+And before I had got to the foot of the cliffs, there
+came a great <i>boom!</i> behind me, and I looked round, and
+the yacht was blazing worse than ever, for her petrol-tanks
+had blown up. Yet they had been half drained earlier, so
+the explosion was not all I had hoped for. When I got to
+the cliff-head, the fire in the yacht was out, so they must
+have got pumps to working on the quay; Jackman will have
+been back with his boys by that time, and what he told the
+boatmen could not have been fit for decent ears. At dawn,
+when I risked a look at the harbor, I could see the wreck
+of the yacht settled into the harbor mud, with the water
+up to her gunwales even at low tide; she must be all awash
+at high tide, and I doubt she’ll ever sail again. Sure, Jackman
+can’t repair her.”</p>
+
+<p>Logan had interrupted seldom; that seemed the best
+policy, when Donley was full of whiskey. Now he asked,
+“Do you mean you’ve bottled up Jackman’s people altogether,
+Mr. Donley?”</p>
+
+<p>“And myself with them, Mr. Detective Logan. Even had
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>Jackman means for sending messages to the mainland, he’d
+say nothing concerning the yacht and the launch, for fear
+of police coming to investigate. And he has no such means,
+public or private. There was a wireless in the yacht, but
+that’s lost; and there was an old wireless in the Old House,
+but that’s been broken for a fortnight, how no one knows.</p>
+
+<p>“In a matter of days, sure, his agents in Glasgow will
+begin fretting after Jackman, what with no word from
+Carnglass, and will send out some boat with trusty men to
+see what’s wrong. Until he has another big launch, though,
+Jackman can do no more spying among the islands, under
+pretext of pleasure-cruising, nor get word from men that
+he pays in South Uist and other places. And now there’s
+no Seamus Donley to handle his explosives for him, though
+Royall and Jackman himself might make shift, if ever they
+find a good time and place to use them. And Jackman will
+be fearing that the fire was seen, and that inquiries will be
+made.”</p>
+
+<p>“How is it, Seamus Donley,” Logan asked him, “that
+you’ve contrived to keep clear of Jackman on this little
+island for three whole days?”</p>
+
+<p>Donley chuckled with a deep gratification. “There’ll be
+a dozen caves in Carnglass; and faint cliff-paths that only
+a Kerry man could follow; and two ruined villages, and
+the two empty farmhouses, and the barns and outhouses
+and the rest. And the mist, the blessed mist. Would you
+believe, Mr. Logan, that I’m sixty-four years of age? No
+more would they. But old Seamus is three times the man
+that the best of them ever was. Oh, I can lay false scents:
+I broke a window at night in the New House, so they might
+think me hid inside, though I never entered; and I smashed
+the lock on the door of this black house—it was kept for a
+hunting-lodge on this shore—though I’ve not slept inside,
+to fool them again; and they cannot tell where I lay my
+head. After dark, they give up the hunt, huddling together
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>in the Old House, for fright of Seamus. And in the day,
+they dare not seek me in packs of less than three, though
+I’ve but little Meg here against their rifles. Twice they’ve
+come near to finishing me, the last time only this evening;
+but the mist saved me again, and I climbed down the sea-face
+of the cliffs, and came round to this hut of yours when
+the tide was low. They’ll be on the scent again so soon as
+there’s daylight. For if Seamus got away from Carnglass
+with a whole skin, their game would be played out.</p>
+
+<p>“What they hope, Mr. Detective Logan, is that old
+Seamus will be worn down by lack of victuals and broken
+sleep and being run like a hare all day; and then they’ll
+bag him. And so they might have done, in a day or two
+more, had you not brought your dinghy to Dalcruach sands,
+Mr. Logan. But now I’ll take French leave of them.”</p>
+
+<p>In his wild and ruinous way, this was a wonderful man,
+Logan thought. “I’ve another plan, Seamus Donley,” he
+said. “It’s this: I suggest that you and I go up to the Old
+House together, in the morning, and face them down.”</p>
+
+<p>Donley slapped his hand upon the table, approvingly;
+and then, remembering his situation, glanced uneasily
+toward the door. “By St. Patrick and St. Merin—whoever
+<i>she</i> was—you’ve a heart in your body, Mr. Logan! You’d
+do honor to the Republican Army. Get thee behind me,
+Satan Logan. ’Tis a temptation: and I might yield, if only
+we had a brace of rifles. Mr. Detective Logan to stand for
+the majesty of the law, and Mr. Seamus Donley for justice
+outraged! Ah, the pleasure of seeing Jackman’s face, under
+the circumstances. Now tell me true: have you no gun
+hid anywhere?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve nothing but a walking-stick and a long razor,”
+Logan said.</p>
+
+<p>Donley shook his bald head. “No, the thing won’t do,
+sir. Look here: there’s but three bullets left in old Meg.”
+He swung open the revolver’s cylinder. “The rest were
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>spent, though I had a pocketful of cartridges, in keeping
+off Jackman’s boys when they came within my range.
+Fine figures you and I would cut, Mr. Detective, with one
+little gun to the pair of us, tossing a sixpence for who
+might have the third shot at Jackman. No, they call me
+a reckless Irishman, but I’m not the fighting fool you seem
+to be. ’Tis away in your boat I must be tonight; and if
+you’ve mind as well as heart, Mr. Logan, you’ll come away
+with me, and let me set you ashore in safety, to fight
+another day.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m thinking of the women’s safety,” Logan said. Donley
+nodded. “But you can do one thing for me, Seamus
+Donley: let me write a note or two, and you can carry
+them with you, and post them the moment you reach a
+postbox; for I take it that I’ll need help.”</p>
+
+<p>“That I will do,” Seamus Donley said. “And more: the
+moment I reach a telephone-kiosk, Mr. Detective, I will
+telephone your damned police, and tell them there is
+trouble in Carnglass. But promise this much to me, that
+you’ll not put my name into your letter. And you must
+hurry, for midnight’s near, and I’ll need the ebbing of
+the tide to take me clear of the skerries.”</p>
+
+<p>“Give me five minutes,” Logan told him, “and your
+leave to light the lamp again, and you’ll have my word.
+You can read the note, for that matter. And then I’ll see
+you launched in the dinghy. But unless you’re a better
+boatman than any I’ve met, I can’t understand how you expect
+to keep clear of the rocks, and fight the currents, let
+alone cross open water, in an open boat.”</p>
+
+<p>“Seamus Donley,” that modest man said, “is as skilled
+with boats as with explosives. Trust me, Mr. Logan: I’ll
+bring your message to land.”</p>
+
+<p>In haste, Logan scribbled a few words to the chief constable,
+Glasgow, or any police-officer into whose hands the
+note might come, saying that a man probably had been
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>murdered in Carnglass, and that more trouble might be
+expected, and that immediate action was required. He put
+the paper into a soggy envelope, and Donley thrust it into
+an inner pocket. “Now,” Logan said, “I’m your man,
+Seamus Donley. But watch for that current just beyond
+the needle-rocks: with the wind we’ve had for these past
+four or five hours, the odds are that it may be too strong
+for you, and smash the boat against the western cliffs.”
+Logan stripped off shoes, stockings, and trousers, for it
+would be drenching work to launch the dinghy. And then
+the two of them went cautiously out of the black house.
+So far as they could tell, they stood alone on the dark
+beach.</p>
+
+<p>Though the wind had gone down an hour earlier, and
+the tide was flowing back toward that lonely sea, still two
+strong men would be needed to launch even a light boat
+in that surge on the beach. Neither moon nor stars showed
+through the blackness. Between them, with much panting
+and heaving, they dragged the dinghy to the water’s edge,
+and then pulled her along the beach to a more sheltered
+spot behind an outcrop of gray, weed-shrouded stone,
+where there was a good chance of getting her really afloat.
+They staggered in water up to their waists; once Logan
+fell, taking in a mouthful of salt water. The dinghy having
+shipped some sea, Donley bailed her as best he could with
+her rusty bucket. Now the trial must be made, and they
+would thrust her against the surf.</p>
+
+<p>Donley flung his overcoat into the boat. “If you’ve no
+strong objection, Mr. Detective Logan,” he growled, “I’ll
+take with me the remnant of your good whiskey: I slipped
+the bottle into my coat pocket as we left the hut. You’ve a
+brave heart, but no eye for sneak-thieves. Yet I’ll give
+value for value.” He handed to Logan something dark and
+weighty: it was the little gun called Meg, in a shoulder-holster
+with a strap.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>Logan fitted the holster under his arm. “That’s generous
+of you, Seamus Donley.”</p>
+
+<p>“She’s a well-balanced weapon, Mr. Detective, and never
+was meant for a free gift to a policeman. But how three
+bullets will prevail against Jackman’s boys, I cannot advise
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Give me your hand,” Logan said. The tremendous
+grip of the Irishman almost made him cry out.</p>
+
+<p>“We should have been Dominicans together, Mr.
+Logan,” Donley grinned. He let go Logan’s hand. “Now
+put your shoulder to the dinghy.”</p>
+
+<p>They forced her bow against the comber, and Donley,
+rolling his great body over the gunwale, seized the oars.
+Logan flung his strength against the stern, running up to
+his nose in the receding wave. Now Donley was plying
+his oars: the shelter of the rocks helped him; yet only a
+man of his vast strength could have made head against
+that surly swell.</p>
+
+<p>Then, suddenly, the crest of a wave was carrying the
+little boat outward; Donley got her round the rocks that
+had helped her launching. If he called out anything to
+Logan at the last, his voice was lost in the noise of waves
+smashing against stone and sand. The dinghy passed into
+the Hebridean night, and Logan wished that fierce man
+good fortune upon his nocturnal sea. A minute later,
+Logan caught one final glimpse of the boat passing over
+the inner reef, Donley rowing mightily. After that, the
+mist settled upon the face of the waters.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">6</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Some strange bird, perhaps a shearwater, swept high
+above Logan as he made his way back to the hovel: it
+shrieked like nothing canny. That cry was a fitting farewell
+to Seamus Donley.</p>
+
+<p>How much might Logan credit of the gunman’s story?
+While Donley had sat before him, sinister and humorous,
+talking in his Kerry way, even the more amazing parts of
+the tale had seemed fairly credible. But now Logan felt
+grave doubts. Donley was a terrorist, his hand against
+every man’s. That someone named Jackman should have
+designs upon Lady MacAskival’s money was not improbable;
+but Donley’s assertion that Jackman meant sabotage,
+espionage, and murder would not quite go down: not in a
+quiet Scottish island owned by an old lady.</p>
+
+<p>Yet there had been Logan’s own encounter with violence
+in Mutto’s Wynd, and that unnerving scene in the valley
+just back of the cliff, with the three men firing at Donley.
+And Donley’s account of Lagg’s end had the ring of truth.</p>
+
+<p>Logan barred the cottage door behind him. Whatever
+measures Jackman’s people had taken with an escaped
+convict, surely they would not deal similarly with an
+American lawyer, known by several people to have been
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>bound for Carnglass. Yet the feel of Donley’s pistol Meg,
+snug under his arm, was a comfort. Well, he must spend
+five hours more in the black house, though he had risen
+from his long sleep only ten hours ago, and did not feel in
+the least tired, even after the launching of the dinghy.
+There could be no climbing the cliffs until dawn. He let
+the fire expire altogether, and did not re-light the lamp:
+Donley’s warnings had that much effect upon him. Lying
+on the old bed with a blanket about him, Logan thought
+of what he must do as soon as the sun began to rise.</p>
+
+<p>The odds were that Donley’s pursuers would be out in
+force when light came; they had nearly caught or shot
+Donley the previous evening, and they would know that
+he was tired, and probably almost out of ammunition.
+And if those men with rifles were even half so rough a
+crew as Donley had suggested, it would be more prudent
+for Logan to avoid a sudden encounter with them—particularly
+since they would take any moving figure to be
+Donley himself. The best course, it seemed, would be for
+Logan to keep to the cliff-tops, if possible, until close to
+the Old House; and then to descend and go straight up to
+the door. If they wouldn’t let him see Lady MacAskival,
+at least they could not mistake him for Donley; and he
+could lay his cards before this Dr. Jackman—or as many
+of his cards as might seem prudent. In Jackman, at least,
+Logan took it, he would confront a rational being.</p>
+
+<p>It was inconceivable that any such man could persist in
+plans of violence—supposing he contemplated any schemes
+of that character—once he knew that he was facing a responsible
+person who had come to Carnglass on legitimate
+business. And if Mr. Lagg should be alive still—Donley,
+after all, had admitted that he had not seen Lagg die—presumably
+Logan would find an ally in him. Yet it might
+be wise to reconnoitre the Old House before knocking at
+the gate.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>It was possible to half-believe Donley’s tale because of
+the deathly solitude that enveloped Carnglass. The island
+was like a great bony corpse. Even here within the thick
+walls of the black house, the whole drowned mountain
+seemed dehumanized—perhaps hostile to humanity. Small
+non-human night noises drifted through the hole in the
+thatch: the rustle of bracken, unpleasantly like sepulchral
+whispering; the cry, again, of that nocturnal bird of prey:
+the surge of the devouring sea against the cliffs. Listening
+to these, Logan fell into a restless doze, now and then
+rousing himself with a start. Fragments of nightmare beset
+him during the sporadic periods when consciousness
+drifted away. And one of those fragments was deeply disturbing.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He found himself in some place utterly dark, and made
+all of stone, without door or window; and his hands, when
+he extended his arms, could touch the cold walls on either
+side. Whether he was lying or standing, it was hard to
+guess: time and space and gravity and equilibrium had no
+meaning here. Something was belted to his side—a sword.
+And he was not alone.</p>
+
+<p>Something else, foul and malign, existed there in that
+oppressive dark space. Of this, he could perceive nothing
+but its eyes; and there were three of its eyes. It was a devouring
+thing. In that cramped dead place, he drew the
+sword, and he hacked at those eyes. Yet the sword rebounded,
+as if he were striking feebly with a blade of grass
+against some enormous hard-shelled insect. “Strike through
+the sham!” a voice cried within him. “Strike through the
+sham!” Frantically he thrust against the blackness below
+the eyes. He was in terror not so much for himself as for
+someone else; but the name and face of that other someone
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>would not come to him. And then, trembling and suffering
+from cramp in one leg, Hugh Logan woke.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Outside the black house, birds were singing at the first
+feeble gleam of light in the east. Still shaken by the vividness
+of that nightmare vision, Logan flung on his clothes
+and strapped his knapsack on his back and took up his
+stick. It would be well to vacate this cottage before the
+man-stalkers of Carnglass were up and about; for, considering
+the direction in which Donley had fled the previous
+evening, Dalcruach was the most likely target for
+them this morning. Donley’s pistol, in its holster, Logan
+fixed round his shoulder under his tweed jacket; it seemed
+adequately concealed.</p>
+
+<p>He climbed the landward cliff more easily than he had
+the previous afternoon, now knowing the neglected path;
+and when he reached the summit, and saw the valley
+empty before him, he turned to his left along the ragged
+crest of those titanic cliffs.</p>
+
+<p>The cliff-top was no narrow ledge: rather, it constituted
+an irregular plateau, in some places only a few feet wide,
+but in most twenty or thirty yards, and here or there a
+good deal wider. Broken by great boulders and dotted
+with springs or pools—some of them almost little ponds—this
+summit was rough going; surely it would take Logan
+almost twice as long to reach the Old House by this route.
+Up here, no doubt, Donley had lurked much of the time.
+When the mists were dense, it would be next to impossible
+to track down a solitary man at the top of this little world.</p>
+
+<p>This was one of those high places in which Satan offers
+the kingdoms of the earth, Logan thought. Because of the
+winds, and the lack of soil, nothing grew here except occasional
+clumps of heather and little ferns and rock-plants.
+For the most part, the summit-plateau sloped inward
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>toward the valleys of the island; the sea-face seemed to be
+sheer drop, almost everywhere. Today the wind was fairly
+strong, sweeping the spring fog out to sea, and Logan had
+clear glimpses, half the time, of the interior of Carnglass.
+The island was much better wooded than are most of the
+Hebrides: thick plantations were dotted here and there
+below the screes, doubtless the work of old Sir Alastair
+MacAskival. Twice, as he made his precarious way over
+the windswept rocks, Logan saw red deer grazing near the
+cliff-foot. And everywhere was trickling water. Early spring
+in the Western Isles has its charms, but it made the rocks
+treacherous for Logan, and soaked his boots through. He
+used his binoculars when he came to a bold promontory
+of cliff, looking northward, though he lay down to avoid
+making a mark of himself. Near the ruined farmhouse
+at Mucaird, a small flock of sheep was browsing, some
+straying upward upon the hill itself; yet there was no sign
+of any man.</p>
+
+<p>But a quarter of an hour later, as he drew near to a
+jumbled mass of living rock and broken boulders covered
+with lichens, something moving against the heather of
+Mucaird caught his eye. Half sheltering himself behind a
+rock, he took out the binoculars again. Yes, it was three
+men with rifles, close to the derelict farmhouse and sheilings,
+and walking in the direction of Dalcruach. Something
+in their movements suggested that they were very ill
+at ease. And at that moment Logan felt himself to be in
+peril.</p>
+
+<p>For only fifty yards away, and scrambling toward him,
+came two armed men. Their attention was fixed upon the
+scene in the valley, as his had been, and apparently they
+did not see Logan. He slid quickly down behind his boulder.
+It scarcely was possible that this cliff-patrol should fail
+to detect him. Should he stand up and call out to them
+now, or wait until they should be right upon him? Either
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>course had its perils. Then the decision was taken out of
+his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Down in the valley, one of the men flung his rifle to
+his shoulder and fired into the bracken on his left. The
+other hunters in that party knelt and fired also. Having
+put his binoculars back into their case, Logan could not
+see whether there was any movement in that brush. Whatever
+could they be firing at? Mere nerves, probably, since
+they had no idea Donley had escaped from the island; or
+possibly a stray sheep or a deer, which they in their tension
+mistook for a man.</p>
+
+<p>“Ferd!” one of the men on the cliff called out to the
+other. “Ferd!” They were so close to Logan now that they
+sounded almost on the other side of his rock. “They’ve
+flushed him!” Then the voices of his neighbors receded,
+and Logan risked a peek around the boulder. The two had
+turned about and were retracing their steps, apparently
+looking for some way down the cliff to the screes, and so
+to the valley floor. It had been a close call. As the two
+riflemen scrambled round a rock shelf and began a tentative
+descent, Logan crept toward the seaward side of the
+cliff and so on toward the west, sometimes on hands and
+knees, until he felt safe from their sight.</p>
+
+<p>When next he ventured toward the inland side of the
+cliff and took out his binoculars, the party of three men in
+the valley was vanishing behind a knoll toward the northern
+cliffs, and the other two, who had so nearly stumbled
+upon him, were nowhere to be seen; presumably they still
+were groping for a way down. Now, Logan guessed, he
+would be secure from such patrols until he came close to
+the Old House. Likely enough, two or three men had been
+sent to search the northern line of cliffs, so as to drive the
+elusive Donley like a wild beast toward Dalcruach; and
+that would leave only a handful of men about the Old
+House, the New House, and the harbor—if, indeed, even
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span>these last, or most of them, were not out searching elsewhere.
+He ought to be able to get very close up to the Old
+House before being noticed.</p>
+
+<p>Soon he was past the ridge or saddle that joined the
+cliffs to the hill of Mucaird; and now he could look down
+upon the further valley. Broader than the first, it also was
+less stricken by the plague of bracken; there were cattle
+grazing—yes, the shaggy Highland beasts, he could see.
+The ring of cliffs was lower here than at the other end of
+the island. At the southwestern extremity, those gray walls
+dipped down to the ocean, forming the neck of Askival
+harbor. On the northern side of the harbor, the cliffs
+rose again and merged into a steep hill, which must be
+the one called Cailleach, The Nun. At its foot he could
+make out the scanty ruins of an ancient village: here Duncan
+MacAskival’s crofting ancestors had lived.</p>
+
+<p>Askival harbor was a good deep anchorage. On either
+side of its mouth, an old pier of rubble ran out to narrow
+the entrance still further against the ravenous ocean. And
+at the quay nearest to him, the burnt yacht lay lurched
+against the rocks; it was low tide again now, and her deck,
+or what remained of it, was just awash. The New House,
+rather a modest and neat eighteenth-century mansion, stood
+close by the harbor, surrounded by plantations and overgrown
+gardens. Further up the valley, in the shelter of the
+southern cliffs on which he stood, there was another farmhouse,
+apparently empty, but in better condition than the
+one by Mucaird; and near it some cottages and sheilings.</p>
+
+<p>All this, Logan took in through a long, low sweep of
+the binoculars. Then he focused upon the object of this
+troubled journey of his, the Old House of Fear. A quarter
+of a mile back from the harbor, the stark gray walls of the
+Old House rose upon a massive outcrop of rock: a place
+of great strength once. No man was stirring about it.</p>
+
+<p>Fine old trees grew at the very foot of the living rock
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>on which the Old House was built; but the castle defied the
+wind in its naked power, showing no touch of greenery
+except a glimpse of leaves at the back, possibly in a small
+walled garden. The late-Victorian wing blended fairly harmoniously
+with the mass of the ancient tower, and seemed
+to close off the original entrance from the present exterior
+of the complex; the modern gate must front toward the
+harbor, and so lie hidden from Logan’s view, from his
+present position upon the cliffs. Talk of castles in Spain!
+The Old House of Fear, here upon the desolate verge of
+civilization—at the limits, indeed, of human existence
+itself—had a brooding glamour denied to Roman and Saracen
+lands.</p>
+
+<p>Here toward the harbor, the cliff-face was easier than the
+precipices toward the northeastern end of the island. If he
+were cautious, he might make the descent without alarming
+anyone at the Old House. Having climbed several summers
+both in the highlands of Perthshire and in the Rockies,
+Logan could avoid sending boulders thundering before
+him. Supposing no one chanced to make a target of him,
+he might reach the Old House about noon.</p>
+
+<p>Now how might he descend toward the Old House unobserved?
+Coming down the cliff-face and the screes, if he
+should try it just now, he must make a fair mark; although
+when he should reach the cliff-foot, he might pass to the
+back of the New House through the plantations and then
+slink along a belt of aspens and firs which stretched from
+the New House to the wood round the base of the rock
+where stood the Old House. First, however, he must make
+his way along the cliffs until he should come nearly abreast
+of the New House, and then seek for a way down. And the
+thing might be done, in this mistiest of islands, in this mistiest
+of seasons. For the breeze was subsiding again, and the
+sky had darkened; and once more the fog might settle over
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>cliffs and hill-tops, though possibly it would not sink low
+into the valley.</p>
+
+<p>It took Logan half an hour to discover—always taking
+advantage of cover—a tolerable fissure in the cliff down
+which he might make his way. Still no one was to be seen
+between him and the Old House. Twice he thought he
+heard gunshots in the distant northeastern valley; but, the
+wind being eccentric and generally against him, he might
+have been mistaken. And presently, as he had hoped, the
+mist began to settle like a shroud upon the cliffs. His tweeds
+blended with rock and heather. For twenty minutes more,
+he crouched at the summit, the fog slowly shutting off his
+view of harbor and New House and Old House. Then,
+carefully, he began the slippery descent. When he reached
+the talus-slope, he walked gingerly, lest he start a warning
+slide of rock debris.</p>
+
+<p>Still he saw no one, nor heard anything. At length he
+was in the firs of the outlying plantations of the New
+House, and moving swiftly toward the Old House. It was
+midday, on a Wednesday, a full week since he had left
+Michigan. And now he stood, sheltered by old trees, right
+below the Old House of Fear.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately above him, nearly thirty feet up the steeply-sloping
+gray outcrop, was the little walled garden he had
+glimpsed from the cliffs; and a stout stone dyke about eight
+feet high enclosed it. The garden was set against the rear
+wall of the great ancient tower, the windows of which
+looked upon the wood, so that the moment Logan should
+emerge from the cover of the trees, he must be fully visible
+to anyone at those windows. Most of the apertures in
+the tower-wall—from this position below, it seemed like a
+skyscraper—were the original or at least medieval windows,
+perhaps a foot square, though now closed with glass panes;
+but the windows of the third story had been much enlarged,
+perhaps at the end of the seventeenth century, so that they
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>were taller than a man, and fitted with double sashes of
+nine panes each. Crouching near the northeastern angle of
+the tower as he did, Logan could see the range of seventeenth-century
+buildings that extended to the smaller medieval
+tower, and beyond that the jutting bulk of the late-Victorian
+additions, which covered the whole surface of the
+seaward part of the rock. So long as he kept to the rear of
+the old tower, he could not be observed from the later
+portions of the mansion. And it stood to reason that some
+sort of postern-door must open from the old tower into
+the walled garden.</p>
+
+<p>There drifted to him a sound of voices. Lying flat in the
+wood, Logan made out two men with guns, striding from
+behind the façade of the Victorian building in the direction
+of the hill called Cailleach; thus their backs were to
+him, or soon would be. The leader was a tall gaunt gawky
+creature, possibly Donley’s “walking cadaver,” Royall. So
+Logan knew that he had not yet been seen; and there were
+two less snipers to fret about for the moment. He let
+them go out of sight downhill. By hooking the handle of
+his stick over the lip of the garden dyke, he thought, he
+should be able to scramble up and into the little garden.
+It had best be now.</p>
+
+<p>But at that moment, as he rose to step out of the wood
+and clamber upon the rock, he perceived someone at the
+nearest third-story window of the old tower. “Saints be
+praised,” Donley would have said; for it was a woman’s
+shape. If this should be Lady MacAskival herself, Logan’s
+work might be made easier for him. He stepped into the
+open.</p>
+
+<p>From high above, she saw him; and though perhaps she
+started a little, she gave no sign of real dread. This was the
+first calming thing that Logan had observed in Carnglass.
+Unhurried, the woman lifted the sash. Surely she could
+not be Lady MacAskival, for she was slim and graceful
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>and apparently young; that much Logan could make out,
+though she stood so high above him. Could this be the
+“Young One” to whom Donley had referred vaguely?
+There had not been much time for asking incidental
+questions of Donley. Then she spoke, with a gentle lilt
+to her voice, and very low, so that her words just carried
+to Logan. “If you can come over the dyke,” she said, “I
+will open the little door for you.” Her shape vanished
+from the window.</p>
+
+<p>Logan skipped up the great rock and hooked his stick
+upon the dyke, putting his feet against the wall; and up he
+went, and grasped the top—luckily there was no broken
+bottle-glass set into it—and pulled himself over, and sprang
+into the square of garden, which must have been wearisomely
+established by patient labor in this unlikely spot.
+There were a half-dozen flowering shrubs, and some small
+yews, and two neat beds of flowers. And beyond these lay a
+small heavy iron door set into the great wall. Logan waited
+a long minute before bolts grated back and the door swung
+inward.</p>
+
+<p>“Quickly, now,” that soft voice said, “and please take off
+your boots once you are inside.” The foundation-wall into
+which the doorway had been cut must be at least ten feet
+thick. Logan slipped past the woman, who bolted the door
+behind him, and he had unlaced and removed his boots
+almost before she turned to him. They stood in an enormous
+empty vaulted chamber, in the earliest days of the
+stronghold a stable and storehouse, no doubt. At one angle,
+a stone stair wound upward into the blackness of the great
+wall itself. Though the only light came from slits three
+feet above their heads, he saw her fairly plain.</p>
+
+<p>“Really, sir,” she was saying, ever so quietly, but with an
+undertone of amusement, “you seem to have scrambled
+over the worst of Carnglass.” Logan became conscious of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>his rock-bruises and his two-day beard. “Now what is your
+name, please, and who sent you?”</p>
+
+<p>She was young, less than twenty, and a tiny beauty: her
+shapely head came scarcely above Logan’s shoulder. The
+oval face with the high cheek-bones was a charming pink-and-white;
+the firm lips had an infinite grace and mobility,
+and the dreamy wide eyes were green. The nose, perhaps,
+was a trifle masculine in so small a face, straight and strong.
+And the flaming glory of her red hair, which descended to
+her supple waist! She wore a close-fitting simple suit, of
+the green tweed of the Islands. Blood tells, Logan thought:
+this girl is of the old line. She made him stammer.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m Hugh Logan,” he said, “representing Mr. Duncan
+MacAskival.”</p>
+
+<p>She clapped her slender hands noiselessly. “I knew you
+must come from him! It was I that sent for you, you know.
+Are there others just outside?”</p>
+
+<p>Logan shook his head. This would be the Young One.
+But who was she?</p>
+
+<p>“And I am Mary MacAskival,” she told him. “Come
+away, and make no noise. I do not think we shall be long
+alone together. Carry your boots.” She sprang to the twisting
+dark stair in the wall, with Logan at her heels. They
+were naked delicate heels, Logan saw, as they scampered
+up into the wall: she wore no shoes and stockings, as if the
+chill stones of the Hebrides were warm sand to her. The
+bare feet of Scottish girls, it came to him incongruously,
+had been one of the principal attractions of the land for
+French visitors in the eighteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>In silence, they passed a shallow landing and a massive
+door; and hurried up another corkscrew flight, she pausing
+to whisper, “Do watch your feet here; it is the bad step—the
+place they made to trip enemies in the fighting with claymores,
+you know.” Yes, the single step was two inches
+higher than the rest, to throw off balance a man leaping
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span>upward. They passed a second recessed landing and a second
+heavy door; and then Mary MacAskival swung open
+the door opening upon the third story, ushering Logan
+into a noble ancient vaulted chamber. “This is my very
+own parlor,” she told him, with just a hint of vanity.</p>
+
+<p>The square room had a ceiling painted in faded reds and
+browns, geometrical designs by men long dead; and there
+were a few good pieces of furniture, principally eighteenth
+century, and a crimson Victorian sofa. A door in the further
+wall gave entrance, probably, to the seventeenth-century
+domestic range of the Old House; and another led, presumably,
+to a sleeping-closet. “Do sit down,” the girl said,
+gesturing toward the sofa, “and you may put on your boots,
+if you like. I did not wish them to hear us on the stair.”
+For herself, she settled nimbly into a window-nook opposite
+him, her tiny feet hid by her skirt. “Now tell me truly,”
+she went on. “Are you a real American? I thought all Americans
+wore synthetic suits, and carried great cameras over
+their shoulders, and smoked cigars incessantly, and said
+‘You bet’ and ‘I guess,’ and wore their hair sheared ever
+so close. Do you know, Mr. Logan, you could pass muster
+for a Scot? Now wherever are the others?”</p>
+
+<p>“There’s no one with me,” Logan said. She still had
+him nearly tongue-tied, like an adolescent.</p>
+
+<p>A little charming ripple of dismay passed over that lively
+face of hers. “No others? Then where are Mr. Duncan MacAskival
+and all his people?”</p>
+
+<p>“I came alone from America, Miss MacAskival, and it
+was all I could do to make Carnglass by myself.”</p>
+
+<p>“No!” That sweet mouth rounded to give force to the
+negation. “No!” She threw back from her forehead a lock
+of red hair, bewildered. “Mr. Logan, I’m afraid I have
+made a serious error. You must understand that I am not
+very worldly; I’m sorry for it. I thought any American
+millionaire would come in his own grand yacht, and servants
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span>beside him, and perhaps policemen and soldiers and
+cabinet-ministers. I never guessed that you, or anyone else,
+might come all alone. I do fear that I may have fetched
+you into a dangerous plight.” Her musical island English—and
+yet she must have been to a good school somewhere,
+too—was so pleasant to the ear that Logan almost neglected
+the warning in her words. “Now look here, Mr. Logan.” A
+quality of decision came into her soft voice that had some
+connection with that high-bridged nose of hers. “Do you
+think you could pretend—successfully, I mean—to be an
+Edinburgh man? A young bank-clerk? The British Linen
+Bank, shall we say?” Despite the girl’s childish look, in
+some respects she was in advance of her years; just now she
+might have been a dowager duchess. “You can? Then you
+must do precisely that. I do hope you studied play-acting
+once upon a time. I did, you know, at the convent-school.
+You’re very young, Mr. Logan—I had expected a very rich
+and very fat old man—but really, you must contrive to carry
+it off. Everything depends on it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Just a question or two, please,” Logan said. “I met a
+man named Donley at the other end of the island.”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course.” She smiled. “A great cheerful ruffian. And
+he said some things to you? They will not have caught him
+yet?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t believe they’ll ever catch that man, Miss MacAskival.
+He told me that matters are dangerous here in
+the Old House.”</p>
+
+<p>“He told you truly. What else did he tell you?”</p>
+
+<p>“He said that Dr. Jackman intends to—to have Lady
+MacAskival die.”</p>
+
+<p>Her eyebrows lifted. “O, no! Donley was mistaken. Lady
+MacAskival would not have been alive these past two
+months had not Dr. Jackman tended her with all his skill.
+He has been a good nurse. It’s to his own interest that she
+should live.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span>Logan looked her compassionately in the eyes. “And
+Donley hinted that you, too, were to die.”</p>
+
+<p>The girl shook her bright head impatiently. “Donley
+did not understand. Dr. Jackman does not mean to have
+me die—not now, and perhaps never. Dr. Jackman means to
+marry me.”</p>
+
+<p>Logan had cultivated a calm courtroom presence, but
+now he blinked. “You’re not joking?”</p>
+
+<p>Mary MacAskival smiled ever so slightly. “Do you think
+Dr. Jackman shows bad taste? Hush, now!” She sat listening
+intently, her head inclined toward the door that opened
+upon the body of the Old House. Logan could hear nothing,
+but of course this girl’s ears would be attuned to every
+footfall in that strange place.</p>
+
+<p>“Stand up, please,” she said; and then, silent on her
+nimble naked feet, she approached him. “I do hope you’ll
+forgive me, Mr. Logan, but I am about to do something
+rude. I’ve done it seldom, and I may do it badly.” There
+came a light tap at the door. “Hold me, if you please,” she
+whispered, and pressed that lithe body against him, flinging
+her arms about his neck. Logan heard the door creak
+open, but he could not see, for the moment, who entered;
+and this was because Mary MacAskival’s red lips were
+thrust upon his, and the glory of her red hair was all about
+his face. Then, as she let him go a trifle, over her shoulder
+he saw a man standing in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>It was a small man, sturdy enough, but with an indescribable
+air of deformity about him—perhaps a curious
+thrusting forward of the shoulders. With his forehead, too,
+there was something faintly wrong. But the eyes were
+splendid: black, and piercing, piercing. The man’s face
+was one of those faces which never were young and never
+will be ancient. The face tightened, as if resisting shock,
+and Logan thought the man’s right hand strayed toward
+the back of his coat; but it returned gently to his side.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>The man’s voice was controlled and well modulated.
+“I am surprised to find you have a visitor, Miss MacAskival.”</p>
+
+<p>Mary MacAskival let go her arms from Logan’s neck
+and turned on her toes to face the man, with a wonderfully
+convincing air of surprise and embarrassment. “Oh,
+Dr. Jackman!” she murmured. “We must have looked
+dreadfully silly. Dr. Jackman, may I present Mr. Hugh
+Logan, of the British Linen Bank, Edinburgh? Mr. Logan
+and I are to be married.”</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">7</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>“Why, then,” Dr. Jackman said, “Mr. Logan is a fortunate
+young man.” The note of irony was faint. “I seem to recollect,
+Miss MacAskival, your mentioning that you met
+a young man at an Edinburgh party, last Christmas: I suppose
+this is he. And however did your betrothed contrive
+to come into this house, in this season?”</p>
+
+<p>Whatever game the girl was playing, Logan thought,
+he too would have to play it now. And possibly he might
+carry it off. Jackman he took for an Englishman. Logan
+had some talent for languages and dialects; his courtroom
+years had taught him dissimulation; and since the war he
+had been in several amateur performances of the Players’
+Club. Now for his present role: he had best play the part of
+a rather callow, but ambitious, clerk from the Lothians.
+His speech ought to have a strong suggestion of Scots, but
+to seem an imitation of public-school English, and with a
+touch of what people called “la-de-da.” A small moustache
+might have gone well with the part; it was a pity he hadn’t
+been given time to cultivate one.</p>
+
+<p>So Logan stepped forward rather stiffly, offering his hand
+to Jackman. “Now the fat is in the fire, isn’t it? Rather.
+It’s grand to make your acquaintance, Dr. Jackman, but
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span>really, I must apologize for coming informally this way.
+It’s my fortnight’s holiday, and I had promised Mary to
+come for a holiday as soon as ever I could. Somehow my
+letters hadn’t reached her. The post is beastly nowadays,
+is it not? Some fishing-johnnies brought me over from
+North Uist, and set me ashore at the other end of your wee
+island. Now I must see Lady MacAskival today and ask her
+approval. For Mary and I do not mean to wait another
+quarter, do we, Mary, darling?”</p>
+
+<p>The girl had stepped forward with him; and now Logan,
+putting an arm about her waist, gave her an overdemonstrative
+squeeze, in keeping with his new character. She
+did not seem disconcerted. “No, Hughie,” she said, “we
+mustn’t wait a day longer than necessary.”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Jackman’s thin lips contracted, but he took Logan’s
+hand briefly. “You and I will have much to discuss soon,
+Mr. Logan,” he said, “but just now, tell me this: if you
+came from the shore at Dalcruach, did you meet no one
+on your way?”</p>
+
+<p>“Indeed I did see some men hunting,” Logan replied,
+easily, “but they were away down in the glen, and their
+backs to me, so they did not see me when I waved.” He
+was doing well enough with his assumed pronunciation,
+he thought; he threw just a suggestion of “awa’ doon” into
+his words. “Then there were two sportsmen on the cliffs,
+and I called after them, but the mist came up and hid
+them. I kept to the cliffs, the better for finding the castle.
+And Mary here”—he squeezed her again—“had told me her
+rooms were at the back of the house, so I went round, and
+Mary saw me and let me in.” He felt sure that Jackman
+disliked him intensely. Who wouldn’t, in his present role?
+He hoped he was convincing as a pushing, canny, and unmannerly
+junior clerk.</p>
+
+<p>Jackman looked vexed, though not especially with him.
+“Mr. Logan,” Jackman said, “did you ever dream that you
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>were the commander of a garrison, for instance, with Red
+Indians all about your fort; but that the moment you
+turned your back, your troops would vanish like shadows;
+and any shot that was fired at the enemy, would have to be
+fired by yourself?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir,” Logan replied, with what he trusted was a
+properly oafish perplexity, “I never did. The fact of the
+matter is, I never do dream.”</p>
+
+<p>“I should have thought of that,” Jackman observed. “No,
+I’m sure you never dream. But to return to the heart of the
+matter: I dream a great deal. And the conduct of Lady
+MacAskival’s servants is like a nightmare to me. What incompetence!
+Yet several of them saw service during the
+late war. If none of them spied you on the cliffs, they must
+be even duller than I thought. I suppose that Miss MacAskival
+has told you a very dangerous man is at large in
+the island?”</p>
+
+<p>“She has, sir; and I am thankful I did not meet with
+him on my way. An Irishman, she says.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, Donley: an Irishman, and a homicidal maniac.
+Our people have been seeking to arrest him for more than
+three days, but he always escapes their net. Those were not
+sportsmen you saw, Mr. Logan, but our people tracking
+this Donley. Neither Miss MacAskival nor anyone else in
+this house will be able to set foot outside while that man
+is at large, unless accompanied by an armed guard. I regret
+to say, Miss MacAskival, that I must forbid you to visit
+your garden until the man is caught. And please have the
+goodness to remember to keep back from the windows.
+The man is armed, Mr. Logan, and a crack shot. Only
+Ferd Caggia, our cook, is his peer with a gun. To be defended
+by a Maltese cook in one’s own castle! Ludicrous,
+isn’t it, Mr. Logan? I suppose you wonder why we haven’t
+summoned the police. But possibly Miss MacAskival has
+had time to tell you that the madman destroyed our boats,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span>and we have been quite out of communication with the
+mainland. Presumably, however, our agents in Glasgow
+will send a launch to us in a day or two, by way of inquiry,
+and then we can call in the police. That launch, by the way,
+can give you passage back to the mainland, Mr. Logan.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s very thoughtful, I’m sure, sir,” Logan said innocently,
+“but it’s my plan to stay the best part of a fortnight,
+if Lady MacAskival will permit me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Lady MacAskival is in no condition to make decisions
+of any nature. As for your remaining here—why, we’d best
+go upstairs to my study and discuss certain matters, Mr.
+Logan. Will you excuse me, Miss MacAskival?”</p>
+
+<p>That barefoot little girl stepped forward like a princess.
+“Dr. Jackman: surely you remember my Airedale, Tyke?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” Jackman said with a frosty smile, “I do. A great
+pity, that rabbit-hunting accident.”</p>
+
+<p>“You took Tyke for a walk, Dr. Jackman,” Mary MacAskival
+went on, dispassionately, “and never did you bring
+him back. I wish you to bring Hugh back to me. I intend
+to give him tea here in my parlor, one hour from now.”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course, my dear young lady.” Jackman bowed
+slightly. “I shall bring him back safe in wind and limb:
+eh, Logan?” He clapped Logan lightly on the back. “And
+now, be so good as to follow me up these stairs. Mind the
+worn stone treads: they’re treacherous. No one knows how
+many generations of MacAskivals have trodden that granite
+through. There’s a legend that the ghost of Old Askival
+snatches at one’s ankles on those stairs. Eh, Miss MacAskival?
+I’m sure he’d snatch at yours, and small blame to him.”
+Jackman nodded at the girl with a kind of paternal gallantry.</p>
+
+<p>Mary MacAskival stood in the doorway as Logan and
+Jackman began to ascend. “I believe it was my ankles that
+you noticed first, wasn’t it, Hughie?” Though the stair
+was dark, Logan thought that Jackman almost winced. “I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span>suppose I really ought to tell you how it was that Hugh
+and I came to meet, Dr. Jackman. You’ve already guessed
+that it must have been during that wonderful fortnight
+Lady MacAskival and you let me spend in Edinburgh in
+December with Anne Lindsay, who had been at school
+with me. I happened to go into the Lawnmarket office of
+the British Linen Bank to change a five-pound note; and
+Hugh was so very helpful; and we found that he knew the
+Lindsays of George Square; and....”</p>
+
+<p>“Quite,” said Dr. Jackman, “quite. Perhaps we had best
+leave the rest to my fertile imagination? Really, I am not
+in the least surprised; if you will pardon my saying so, Miss
+Mary MacAskival, the little episode is part and parcel with
+the traditional impulsiveness of ladies of your family. You
+understand what I mean. The inscription by the door of the
+old tower, for instance—we’ll show you that incised slab
+later, Mr. Logan. Just now, I’ve only one thing to say to
+you, Miss MacAskival. I advise you to go in to Lady MacAskival
+and tell her that a young man has come to call
+upon you. As for any mention of marriage, the shock might
+put an end to your aunt; and you know as well as I do the
+certain consequence to your own prospects. Yet you had
+best mention Mr. Logan’s coming, because old Agnes
+would tell her soon enough, in any event. I advise you to
+be extremely gentle and prudent in the telling. And while
+you are having your little chat with Lady MacAskival, I
+shall have my little chat with your Mr. Logan.”</p>
+
+<p>Mary MacAskival sent a glance from her disturbing
+green eyes at Hugh as he followed Jackman up the dark
+stair; and she gave him a demure wink. Whatever else the
+girl had or lacked, she had sufficient courage in adversity.
+Then she was gone, and Jackman led him round and round
+the twisting stair in the thickness of the wall, past several
+shut doors, to the topmost chamber of the tower. Upon
+three sides were windows, not so large as those of Miss
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span>MacAskival’s room, but still big and handsome; and on
+the fourth wall was an immense fireplace, perhaps fifteenth-century
+work, with a ponderous chimney-piece carved
+crudely from basalt. On one side of the mantel, and standing
+two feet high, carved almost in the round, was the
+effigy of a naked man holding an axe; and on the other, a
+naked woman clutching a cross to her breast.</p>
+
+<p>“A ponderous quaint affair, isn’t it?” Jackman observed,
+nodding toward the fireplace. “There are similar figures
+set into the outer wall, by the door of this tower: Askival
+and Merin, they say. The Old House is so well preserved
+only because it stood empty, but not a ruin, nearly the
+whole of the nineteenth century: the proprietors lived in
+the New House. They used the ground floors of the Old
+House for byres and rubbish-rooms. Sir Alastair MacAskival,
+the present old lady’s husband, restored the Old House—with
+his wife’s money. It’s far too large for such a household
+as she has now. The block that Sir Alastair added is
+all great drawing-rooms and dining-rooms and billiard-rooms
+and ball-rooms, with the kitchens below; and the
+present servants sleep in the upper rooms of that wing.
+Lady MacAskival has a grand bedroom hung with Spanish
+leather, in the Renaissance range; and I have rooms in that
+building. But I spend much of my time in this study. For
+centuries it was the private chamber of the chiefs of MacAskival.
+There’s a fine prospect; but I’ll show you that later,
+Mr. Logan. And have you noticed the ceiling? But I presume
+you’re no antiquarian.”</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, the ceiling was a wonder. Though the colors
+in which its panels were painted were much like those of
+the ceiling in Mary MacAskival’s parlor, here geometrical
+designs alternated with scores of stiff representations of
+queer men and beasties: kings, perhaps, and knights, and
+ladies, and lions, and leopards, and griffins, and water-horses,
+and unicorns, and things for which Logan knew no
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>name—no two alike. “Late fifteenth century, perhaps,”
+Jackman said, “and almost unique in the islands, this ceiling.”</p>
+
+<p>At the center of all these painted ceiling-panels was a
+panel with a dull red background; and on it, little faded,
+was depicted a very odd creature. It had the body of a man;
+but there were cloven hoofs instead of feet, though it
+showed human hands; and the head was the narrow malign
+head of a goat. The face itself seemed to be a dismaying
+blend of human and animal features, in which the cunning
+slit goat-eyes dominated. “I see you are looking at the Firgower—the
+central panel,” Jackman went on. “A beast
+peculiar to Carnglass, it seems, the Firgower: half goat,
+half man. There’s still a ruinous building upon the cliffs
+called the Firgower’s house. I take it to have been the house
+of the last Pictish chief of Carnglass, before the Vikings
+came. There’s some remote Pict strain, as well as Norse,
+in your own Miss MacAskival, Mr. Logan. She is of the
+old family, true enough—not that she has the faintest legitimate
+claim to the property, you understand. But I suppose
+you have little interest in fictions like the Firgower. These
+legends sometimes have meaning, all the same. Once an
+archeologist told me that the Firgower may be some island
+memory of the last Pict chieftain himself: an ugly brute,
+to judge from this portrait. The old islanders used to say
+that the Firgower never died, but lives on from age to age.
+And that’s true enough, Mr. Logan, after a fashion—the
+goat strain, I mean. I don’t scruple to say that a goatish
+strain has run through the line of MacAskival, from beginning
+to end. Gallant men and handsome women; but concupiscent,
+Mr. Logan, concupiscent. You understand me?
+There are vessels for honor, and vessels for dishonor.”</p>
+
+<p>“I can’t say that I do understand, precisely, sir.” The
+two of them were seated in leather chairs now, and Jackman
+was pouring sherry from an eighteenth-century decanter.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>What with Mary MacAskival absent, Logan could
+spend his time studying this unnerving Dr. Jackman. As
+Donley had told him, the fellow was clever, immensely
+clever; and more than that, wise, perhaps; and voluble.
+He made Logan uneasy to a degree Logan never had experienced
+with that gunman Donley. The little deformed
+man had a commanding presence. And still Logan was
+unsure of the nature of Jackman’s deformity: it was something
+about the spine and shoulders, though not crippling
+or really noticeable. Yet Jackman’s lean face had about it
+just a suggestion of that look of suffering and humiliation
+which one sometimes sees on the faces of congenital hunchbacks.
+And there was something dismaying about the man’s
+forehead. Right at the middle of his brow existed a small
+and shallow depression, about the size and shape of a sixpence;
+and there seemed to be no bone behind the skin
+at that spot. Now and then the place seemed to stir a little,
+as if the skin lay upon the quick brain. In an unpleasant
+way, it was fascinating.</p>
+
+<p>“Very good old sherry, this,” Jackman was saying. “Sir
+Alastair kept an admirable cellar, and much of it still is
+below stairs. One has to watch the servants. There’s a
+quantity—perhaps two bins—of Jamaica rum of 1800 or
+earlier, commencing to lose its savor now, alas. Another
+drop, Mr. Logan? You’ve been looking at the hole in my
+head: not that I mean to reproach you, for you’d have to be
+blind to ignore it. It’s a souvenir of Spain. In the lines outside
+Teruel, a spent bullet went right through the bone.
+But there was a Russian surgeon in Teruel that day,
+luckily, and he got the bullet out, and now there’s a bit of
+plastic set into my poor skull. I call the place my third eye.
+You’ve read the Hebridean legends of third eyes, Mr.
+Logan? No? I suppose you’ve little time for general reading,
+what with the getting and spending of your vocation. For
+that matter, I presume you know next to nothing of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span>Spanish trouble, more than twenty years ago: a youthful indiscretion
+of mine. But possibly that’s just as well. Every
+man to his last. You will be twenty-seven years old, Mr.
+Logan, or perhaps twenty-eight? And earning seven pounds
+a week, like as not. And you aspire to marry the sole survivor
+of the old, old line of MacAskival. Not that I blame you,
+not in the least. In the coming world, Mr. Logan, there will
+be no rank and no class. And intellect will have its rewards.
+No, so far as social status is concerned, I offer no objection.
+‘A man’s a man for a’ that,’ as you Scots say, Mr. Logan.
+Yet I would be no friend to you if I neglected to give you
+some description of the difficulties in your way.”</p>
+
+<p>His face and his facility of speech had served him well,
+Logan thought: Dr. Jackman had no doubt, it appeared,
+that Logan was indeed an Edinburgh clerk; and astute
+though Jackman obviously was, he had underestimated
+Logan’s age by nearly a decade. The man could make mistakes.
+Logan intended that Jackman should continue to
+make mistakes, at least until he could discover more about
+Lady MacAskival and Mary MacAskival and Jackman himself.
+“Difficulties, Dr. Jackman?” Logan said, leaning forward
+and acting the pushing clerk, at once brash and
+smarmy. “Difficulties? Mary has told me more than once
+that there will be no financial problem, for she says she’s
+money to burn. And look at this grand house. Aye, I’ll take
+more sherry, and I thank you. Would Lady MacAskival
+raise difficulties, do you think, Dr. Jackman? Look here,
+sir: I ask you as a son to his dad. If Lady MacAskival’s incapacitated,
+would it be asking too much for you to give
+away the bride, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>That twist of the knife had been felt, Logan could tell:
+the skin twitched about the strange spot in Jackman’s forehead;
+but the man’s expression did not change, nor the tone
+of his voice alter. “Why,” Jackman said, “before you and
+I speak of marrying and giving in marriage, there is some
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span>history I must tell you, Mr. Logan. And I fear I have been
+neglecting my duties as host in Lady MacAskival’s absence.”
+He put his hand on a old-fashioned velvet bell-pull,
+and jerked it. “Among the difficulties of life in Carnglass,
+Mr. Logan, is the problem of staff. We take men where we
+find them, and try to be thankful for small mercies. Life in
+the remotest of the Hebrides isn’t to the taste of modern
+servants. Our butler, however, is rather a jewel; you’ll see
+him in a moment. The footman is a diamond, though
+rough. We may have to let the footman, Anderson, go; for
+he has involved us in all this trouble, doubtless with the
+best of intentions. It was on his urging that we engaged
+that Irish brute of a gamekeeper, Seamus Donley, who was
+some connection of Anderson’s. I could see that Donley was
+three parts savage, but in a lonely island like Carnglass,
+savagery may be a virtue in a keeper. What I failed to
+detect was his insanity. For a man of his age, Donley is
+astonishingly strong and quick—for a man of any age, so far
+as that goes. And quite out of his head. He concealed his
+madness with a certain Kerry wheedling wit. I must confess
+that I knew Donley had been in gaol at one time, in Belfast
+or Derry; but I mistook him for a mere simple-minded
+Irish rebel, relatively harmless. I’ve still some fellow-feeling
+for rebels: in my younger days I was rather a radical—almost
+an activist. I still have many acquaintances in the
+labor movement. You are not a Socialist, by any chance,
+Mr. Logan?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, no, sir,” Logan demurred wholeheartedly, “that
+never would do at the British Linen Bank. The manager
+never would allow it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Quite.” Dr. Jackman nodded approval, with the merest
+suggestion of a pucker about the corners of his mouth.
+“Quite right. Socialism is a snare and a delusion, at least as
+socialism is understood in Britain. Hold fast by your principles,
+Mr. Logan.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>A tap at the door, then; and a small gray-haired man in
+a neat velvet jacket entered. He almost stumbled upon
+Logan, and his mouth fell open. “Blimey!” he cried; and
+then, to Jackman, “Begging your pardon, that is, sir.” This
+must be the Cockney butler Donley had mentioned, Sam
+Tompkins; and he certainly did not look like a ruffian or
+a conspirator, though there was a shiftiness about the little
+eyes. South of Mason’s and Dixon’s Line, Logan reflected,
+such a servant would be given to “totin’ victuals.” Yet, the
+times and the place considered, a very decent-looking
+butler.</p>
+
+<p>“Tompkins,” Dr. Jackman said, “this gentleman is Mr.
+Hugh Logan, a friend of Miss MacAskival. He was landed
+from a boat this morning. We shall put him in the brown
+room, opposite mine, and you are to see that everything is
+in order. Take his sack and stick and cape with you.
+And you’d best tell the others as they come in, for fear of
+misunderstanding. Niven is standing guard at the door just
+now? Very well. Make sure he gets nothing to drink. And
+tell Miss MacAskival that Mr. Logan will be late for tea; he
+and I are having a very interesting talk.”</p>
+
+<p>As Tompkins went out, Jackman smiled at Logan. “Your
+arrival will be a nine-days’ wonder below stairs. If you observe
+some surliness or fecklessness below, please accept my
+apologies in advance. I never tolerate deliberate rudeness;
+report anything of that sort to me. Whatever the deficiencies
+of these fellows, I suppose they make up a better
+staff than the mob of Anguses and Annies that must have
+slept on the stairs and in the kitchens of the Old House in
+the grand old days of the MacAskivals—before Donald MacAskival
+was sold up, I mean. Miss MacAskival has told you
+something of the history of the family? Quite so. And speaking
+of old Donald MacAskival, who died raving in the
+New House, I have a curiosity to show you.” Jackman,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>going to a cupboard set in the wall, carefully drew out a
+heavy box and set it on the table before Logan.</p>
+
+<p>The big box, or rather casket, seemed to be carved from
+a single block of stone, almost blue in color, but here and
+there shading into gray. The lid was of the same polished
+stone. “If the servants had the slightest notion of the value
+of these,” Jackman remarked, “I should have to put the
+casket under lock and key.” He lifted the lid and began
+to lift out strange stone figures, each some five inches high.
+“You play chess, Mr. Logan? I have a marble chessboard
+here—modern, I regret to say. But these chessmen are ancient,
+and Norse. They are called the Table-Men of
+Askival.”</p>
+
+<p>The little statuettes were marvellously carved by some
+master of the Viking age. Each was wrapped in cotton-wool,
+and Jackman put them deftly in place on the marble board.
+They were of the same blue stone as the casket in which
+they had lain; and, after a thousand years, they remained
+almost perfect, only three or four being badly chipped.
+“The chiefs of MacAskival would have slit a hundred
+throats rather than have parted with these toys,” Jackman
+went on. “For more than a century, it was thought they
+were lost altogether, but Sir Alastair MacAskival discovered
+them when he was restoring the family tombs by St.
+Merin’s Chapel. The casket was resting, of all places, in
+the stone coffin that is said to be Askival’s own tomb. Perhaps
+Donald MacAskival hid them there when his creditors
+were hard at his heels, for even in the eighteenth century
+these things would have brought a pretty price. If so, they
+are all he left to his descendants. Sir Alastair died less than
+a month after the finding of these, and Lady MacAskival
+has told no one of them, so far as I am aware; so you are
+looking at works of art never photographed or catalogued
+by the museum-people. Do you ever go to the Queen Street
+Museum in Edinburgh? No? A pity. There they have
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span>walrus-ivory chessmen from Lewis, also Norse work, and
+perhaps as old as these. And there are others in the British
+Museum. You have not visited the British Museum? Once,
+like Marx, I went there daily. But I presume it is all <i>l.s.d.</i>
+with you, Mr. Logan. ‘Put money in thy purse, and yet
+again, put money in thy purse.’ So the world goes. Shall we
+make a game of it as we talk?”</p>
+
+<p>Yes, fearfully and wonderfully made, these chessmen.
+The kings held drawn swords across their knees, and stared
+stonily out of bulging merciless eyes; the queens, with long
+wild faces, held daggers; the rooks were berserkers, biting
+on their shields; and all the other pieces, even the pawns,
+were modelled from the life of the age of the Sea-Kings.
+One set of men had been saturated in some reddish dye or
+paint; the other retained its natural blue hue. To play
+with these priceless and timeless things was to sink into
+a remote past. “They’re very nice, I’m sure,” Logan the
+bank-clerk said, with what he trusted was a Philistine indifference.
+“Aye, I’ll play you a game, sir, if you’ll promise
+me I sha’n’t miss my spot of tea with Miss Mary.”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss MacAskival will excuse you; and it occurs to my
+mind, Logan, that perhaps we can discuss certain delicate
+matters more easily in the progress of a match. But I warn
+you, Mr. Logan, that I rarely lose. Here: I submit to a
+handicap.” Jackman removed his own queen from the
+board. “No protests: I think you’ll find me an old hand at
+chess.”</p>
+
+<p>Logan advanced the pawn before his queen’s bishop.
+“I’ve had many a grand match at the West End Young
+Men’s Society for the Advancement of Chess, Dr. Jackman.”</p>
+
+<p>“Indeed.” Jackman made a similar move with his king’s
+bishop’s pawn. “Now the question of marriage aside, Mr.
+Logan, I don’t suppose you’d choose to live in a great
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span>rambling ill-lit place such as the Old House of Fear is,
+would you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, never in the world, sir.” Logan moved again, and
+lost a pawn to Jackman. “No, sir, give me a nice semi-detached
+villa beyond Bruntsfield Links, any day. Even the
+New Town of Edinburgh is too old and stuffy for my
+taste, Dr. Jackman. I like a bit of a rockery in the front
+garden, and an Aga cooker, and a fridge, and a parlor with
+a pair of Portobello china dogs by the hearth.” He advanced
+his king’s knight.</p>
+
+<p>Jackman shot a sharp glance at him. Had he overplayed
+his role a trifle? Logan wondered. The Aga cooker and the
+Portobello dogs were spreading the butter rather thick.
+He smiled ingenuously at Dr. Jackman; and apparently the
+smile was fatuous enough to convince that alarming gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>“That is precisely the sort of man I took you to be,
+Logan: my congratulations. And do you think Miss MacAskival
+would share these reasonable ambitions?” He took
+Logan’s knight.</p>
+
+<p>Logan captured one of Jackman’s pawns. “I don’t see
+why Mary shouldn’t, sir; she’s a canny lass, and the day of
+grand houses like this one is long past.”</p>
+
+<p>Having sent a bishop on a raid deep into Logan’s territory,
+Jackman leaned back in his armchair. “Canny, Mr.
+Logan? Sensible? Miss MacAskival? Charming, certainly;
+beautiful, at least in many eyes; but canny is the last word
+I should apply to her. I consider her my ward <i>de facto</i>, you
+understand, and what I say now is for her good and your
+own, and is to be held in confidence.”</p>
+
+<p>Logan took one of Jackman’s knights. “Perhaps you’ll
+take the trouble to enlighten me, Dr. Jackman.” He
+hunched forward, the picture of the respectful and hopeful
+young man on the rise.</p>
+
+<p>Jackman frowned at the chessboard. “I take it that Miss
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span>MacAskival has given you to understand that she has large
+expectations, or possibly that she already has ample independent
+means? That she is Lady MacAskival’s heiress?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, sir, we’ve not discussed the matter in detail, but
+I have assumed that Mary was to have her due.”</p>
+
+<p>“Her due, Mr. Logan? To be quite frank, Miss MacAskival
+is very little better than a waif. Her grandfather
+was first cousin to Sir Alastair MacAskival—though the
+closest male relative left to Sir Alastair, at the end of his
+life. But Sir Alastair and his cousin were on bad terms;
+and, in any event, Miss Mary MacAskival was born nearly a
+generation after old Sir Alastair died. This is a most tenuous
+family bond, you see, although it is true that the old
+line of MacAskival being almost extinct altogether, Mary
+MacAskival has a better claim than anyone else to be the
+head of her little dispersed and forgotten clan. Our Mary’s
+father was a ship’s second mate, and drowned off Naples in
+the late war. The girl, who cannot remember her father,
+was left with the widow at a village in North Uist. Had
+matters followed their usual course, probably she would
+have grown up knitting sweaters and milking cows, and
+have married some crofter. But then her mother died. The
+girl was left quite alone.</p>
+
+<p>“Lady MacAskival is an old friend of mine, but I cannot
+say she has been known for openhandedness. A minister in
+North Uist wrote to her, however; and, oddly enough, Lady
+MacAskival agreed to take the child into her own household
+and provide for her schooling. Perhaps Lady MacAskival
+felt she owed some debt to her husband’s name;
+she is oppressed by a sense of guilt where her husband is
+concerned, but I sha’n’t enter into that. Whatever her
+reason, she took the girl Mary, and sent her to good schools—to
+the convent-school at Bridge of Earn, most recently.
+I must make it clear here, Mr. Logan, that she did not
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>adopt Miss MacAskival, nor make any provision for her
+future.”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman’s narration did not take his mind altogether
+from the chess-match. He played with assurance and even
+arrogance, while Logan lost three more pieces to him.
+Logan set his face in an expression meant to suggest alarm
+at both the account of Mary MacAskival and the match.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s in a name, Mr. Logan,” Jackman continued,
+“or in the inheritance of family traits? The scientists have
+been at work on these things for a century and better, but
+nothing is settled. Possibly you followed the course of the
+Lysenko affair in the Soviet Union? No, I didn’t suppose
+that was an especial interest of yours. As I said, these problems
+of hereditary traits are not settled, though for my part
+I feel confident that the Russians will give us the answers
+before 1965. Well, our Miss Mary MacAskival seems to
+offer some decided evidence that a certain type of character
+is conveyed from generation to generation within a family,
+whether the cause is genetic or environmental. Since time
+out of mind, the MacAskival men and women—the family
+of the chiefs, I mean—have been rash, spendthrift, fearless,
+and—why, promiscuous, shall we say. Sir Alastair was an
+exception, true, going to the contrary extreme. It has been
+a family exceedingly inbred. I think I am not venturing too
+far when I suggest that the stock is worn out. The qualities
+I mentioned just now were dominant in both Mary’s father
+and mother. The beauty and the daring may survive long
+after the strength and the wits are gone.”</p>
+
+<p>“Dr. Jackman, what are you telling me?” Logan deliberately
+threw a strong burr into his words, to simulate dismay;
+and his disturbance was not altogether feigned. But
+he did not neglect to take Dr. Jackman’s other knight.</p>
+
+<p>Jackman compressed his mouth, as if pained at the
+necessity for speaking out. “Lady MacAskival, while she
+was still in full possession of her faculties, gave me a detailed
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span>account of the girl’s conduct—sometimes she calls
+Mary her niece, out of kindness—from the age of seven upward.
+I have made some serious study in the realm of psychiatric
+disturbances, if I may say so, Mr. Logan. From the
+month Lady MacAskival took the child under her patronage,
+there was trouble with the girl. The reports from the
+schools—she changed schools a number of times—were disturbing.
+Mary was haughty, full of notions of her family’s
+importance; shy, at the same time; and sometimes what
+I must call ferocious. Compensation, perhaps; no doubt she
+was very lonely. Lady MacAskival is not a cordial woman,
+and, besides, Mary saw her ‘aunt’ very seldom; and she did
+not make many friends at school. And now I am about to
+tell you something that may shock you, Logan, or may
+not. Did it ever occur to your mind that sexual overindulgence,
+like drunkenness, often is a retreat into a world of
+fantasy, caused by a deep unhappiness in this real world?
+Our Mary has fed on fantasies of one sort or another, it
+seems, ever since she was a baby. For her, the legends of
+Carnglass, for instance, are real: real in the most literal
+sense of that word. She might happen to identify you with
+her legendary ancestor, Sigurd Askival; and herself with
+his bride, Merin or Marin; and me with—why, the monster,
+the man-goat, the tyrant: the Firgower, that pleasant creature
+we see overhead.”</p>
+
+<p>“Check,” said Logan. Jackman retrieved his situation
+promptly. “Aye, sir,” Logan said, “I know Mary is dreamy;
+but that’s small harm, if we’ve money enough for the whole
+of our lives.”</p>
+
+<p>“I scarcely think you understand how extremely and
+dangerously fanciful Miss MacAskival is, Mr. Logan; nor
+what consequences that sort of mental sickness may lead to.
+She may have let you think, for instance, that she’s a great
+heiress, or rich already. In plain fact, she hasn’t a shilling of
+her own, and I may have difficulty in persuading Lady
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>MacAskival to leave her two or three thousand pounds. My
+old friend says she has given the girl—who is no kin of
+hers really—schooling and breeding enough to make her a
+governess or schoolmistress; and she owes her no more.
+What is worse, perhaps, Mary lives in her own irrational
+private world of gods and devils. And that way lies ...
+why, extreme eccentricity, at the least. And then there is
+the concupiscence, which may be an inherited tendency, or
+at least the next thing to a biological characteristic.”</p>
+
+<p>Logan took another pawn. “Oh, surely now, Dr. Jackman,
+you don’t mean to say that my Mary’s a wild girl?”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman reached gently across the board and gave Logan
+a pat on the shoulder. “It’s best to know these things early,
+Logan. I do mean just that. When our Mary was scarcely
+thirteen, there was—well, what I really must call an affair
+with a farm laborer here in Carnglass, in the summer. The
+man was dismissed as soon as the thing was discovered; he
+could have been sent to prison, I suppose. And yet he does
+not seem to have taken the initiative. Then there was a report
+from school that the girl was found with an hotel
+porter. I sha’n’t say more concerning that. There have been
+two lesser incidents of the same nature—two that we know
+of. And finally, your case.”</p>
+
+<p>“Dr. Jackman!” Logan had half convinced himself that
+he really was a decent, ambitious bank-clerk, and threw corresponding
+indignation and bewilderment into his outcry.
+“Dr. Jackman! I’d never think of anything—anything not
+proper with Mary. I mean the girl to be my wife, Dr. Jackman.”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman raised his eyebrows. “Frankly, now: would you
+care to begin married life with a young woman of these
+tendencies? Possibly you don’t quite believe what I’ve told
+you, though I could show you letters. Yet you’d discover
+the truth after marriage, if you refused to credit it before.
+So far as your own conduct is concerned, Mr. Logan, I’m
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span>satisfied that you have behaved decently. But look at the
+matter from another point of view. Here is a girl who
+throws herself at the head of a young man she encounters
+casually in a bank, because he is bold enough to say he likes
+her ankles. She invites him to her house without even informing
+her guardians. She conducts, I suppose, some clandestine
+correspondence with him. She rushes into his arms
+after not having seen him for three months. Really, Lady
+MacAskival ought not to have allowed Mary that Christmas
+holiday in Edinburgh.”</p>
+
+<p>“Dr. Jackman,” Logan said, “I trust you, and I see you’re
+an educated man. As for me, I never attended the varsity;
+it was not my line. But cannot this be all rumor and misunderstanding
+about Mary?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t mean to be harsh upon the girl; after all, she is
+as much of a daughter as I possess, Logan. Oh, check again,
+by the way. I am not condemning—only explaining. I
+doubt if the girl can help herself. I suspect the concupiscence
+is in the blood. And her loneliness contributes: as I
+suggested, sexual promiscuity sometimes is more a symptom
+of a disorder than a disorder itself. I will be entirely
+blunt, if you will allow me, Mr. Logan: in the legal meaning
+of the phrase, and in other meanings, Mary MacAskival
+is not sane. She is not sane where men are concerned, nor in
+certain other matters. She suffers from a variety of delusions—I
+give you my word. She might suddenly tell you, for
+instance, that I, Edmund Jackman, desire to marry her—an
+absurdity, because it would be almost as if I were to
+marry my own granddaughter, of course. At times she has
+even come to me with—well, shall we say hints and invitations?
+That was when no younger man was available. It
+has been necessary to forbid her very strictly ever to be
+alone even with the servants; Mr. Royall and I take care,
+one or the other of us, to be in this house whenever she is.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span>I’m sorry, Mr. Logan. But to tell you all this is the best
+service I can render you.”</p>
+
+<p>“I had no notion, sir,” Logan told him. He took Jackman’s
+king’s rook. And Logan had no difficulty in looking
+perplexed. Jackman was a very different sort of being from
+the charlatan or bully he had thought he might be. Those
+fine black eyes of Jackman’s looked candidly into Logan’s.</p>
+
+<p>“And I confess I am somewhat surprised, Logan,” Jackman
+was saying, “that you got yourself engaged to the girl
+while she is a minor.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, surely, Dr. Jackman, Mary’s old enough to choose
+for herself.”</p>
+
+<p>“I fear she already has chosen quite often, Logan; she
+began at a tender age, to put it somewhat coarsely. You do
+know just how old she is, I take it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not precisely, sir; she would not tell me her birthday.
+She said I ought not to spend the money for a present.
+Nineteen, nearing twenty, I suppose?”</p>
+
+<p>“Then I have been unjust to you, Logan. If you had
+known ... Miss Mary MacAskival is barely fifteen. She
+prevaricates on that topic, as on many others. Of course, as
+any man with eyes in his head can see, Mary is a well-developed
+girl. Again, it runs in her family, I am told.
+Physically mature, yes; but emotionally and morally immature;
+and always will be.”</p>
+
+<p>Why this disclosure affected Logan so deeply, he hardly
+could explain to himself. It was as if he actually had turned
+himself into the fictitious bank-clerk he was impersonating.
+In this matter, as in related matters, he might have
+been on the verge of making a great fool of himself. He had
+begun to fancy himself in the role of Galahad—or of
+Sigurd Askival—rescuing a beautiful maiden from a wicked
+enchanter. And it seemed to be turning out that the
+maiden was no maid, nor right in the head; and that the
+enchanter was by no means thoroughly wicked. He had
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span>listened to a drunken Irish terrorist spreading scandals
+about an unknown Dr. Jackman. He had not the least proof,
+indeed, that Jackman had any real connection with J.
+Dowie, Commission Agent, or with Captain Gare of the
+frightened eyes; they might be someone else’s agents, perhaps
+in the pay of those London connections of Lady MacAskival.
+It remained possible, and even probable, that this
+Dr. Jackman had aspirations after some of Lady MacAskival’s
+money; but he doubted very much whether Jackman
+was a conspirator, or a saboteur, or even a charlatan.
+Some sort of political radical, likely enough; and a dabbler
+in odd learned subjects; but a keen and even likeable man.
+And for what had Logan been paid to come to Carnglass?
+Not to criticize Dr. Jackman’s character, or to carry off
+young women—or children—of doubtful morals, but
+merely to buy a piece of real estate for his principal. He
+might have made a thoroughgoing fool of himself. Indeed,
+he had done so already. He had put himself in a ridiculous
+light with Jackman by accepting the role of suitor which
+Mary MacAskival, in her madcap childish way, had thrust
+upon him. He had sent a silly note to the police in Glasgow—though
+that would do no real harm, since surely Donley
+had no intention of delivering it. He may have helped a
+murderer escape from the island—almost surely he had
+done just that. He was almost an accomplice, what with the
+Irishman’s gun hidden in a sling under his arm. Yes, he
+was a damned fool; and he might have to play the fool a
+while longer, if only to extricate himself from this folly.
+He moved at hazard on the chessboard; the glaring eyes of
+a berserker-rook confronted him. One misgiving, however,
+did come into his head.</p>
+
+<p>“Dr. Jackman,” he said, “I understand there was a factor,
+a Mr. Lagg. Where is he?”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman seemed taken aback at this <i>non sequitur</i>.
+“Surely Mary has told you....”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span>“No, we had only a moment together before you came
+into the parlor, sir. She had simply mentioned a puzzle of
+sorts, with Mr. Lagg involved.”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman was solemn and troubled. “I am virtually certain,
+Mr. Logan, that Lagg has been murdered. We have
+searched every nook in the island for him, these three days;
+but not a trace. As I have pieced matters together, Donley
+drank too much and broke into Lagg’s house in search of
+money. Lagg was very much of a Scot—if you’ll pardon me,
+Mr. Logan—and the servants talked of how he hoarded five-pound
+notes in his kitchen. Perhaps Lagg returned from a
+visit to the farm while Donley was doing his mischief.
+From the wreckage inside the New House, we can only conjecture
+that there was a struggle. Donley, we know to our
+sorrow, was armed. He may have forced Lagg, at the point
+of his pistol, to the cliff’s edge. But we cannot find the body.
+Then, after Lagg had disappeared and we had begun to
+question Donley, that Irishman broke away and ran into
+the bracken. In the evening he came down and burnt our
+boats, to keep us from reaching the police or in an attempt
+to get a boat for his escape; and we have been after him
+ever since. Presumably he is short of ammunition by this
+time. In the fight at the harbor, he threw burning petrol
+into the boats, and one of our boatmen was terribly burnt,
+poor fellow, and probably will lose the sight of at least one
+eye; I must dress his face again tonight. But Lagg? A gone
+gosling, I am very much afraid. And an efficient factor, for
+years.”</p>
+
+<p>This account of Lagg’s end held together much better
+than did Donley’s. And Logan had told Donley he might
+bear witness for him at any trial! No whisper of this Carnglass
+episode, he hoped, would filter back to America. At
+this moment, Jackman took Logan’s queen. Yes, Hugh
+Logan had made a fool of himself through and through.</p>
+
+<p>“But to return to a topic almost equally difficult for me,
+Logan: I think you will perceive that your marrying Miss
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span>MacAskival is wholly out of the question. To begin with,
+she simply isn’t of age. Besides, the shock of an announcement
+of that sort might put an end to Lady MacAskival,
+who is very old and very sick. And for your own sake,
+Logan—and I rather like your face and your ways—don’t
+be rash. If you still care for the girl after what I’ve told
+you, give her time to reach moral womanhood, if ever she
+can. I don’t say you need to break off the affair altogether.
+Be gentle with her; go back to Edinburgh; exchange letters
+now and then, if you like. But marriage, for the next two
+or three years, would be a catastrophe, I assure you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps you’re right, Dr. Jackman,” Logan replied,
+still in his bank-clerk role.</p>
+
+<p>“I usually am right,” Jackman told him, smiling. “And
+there’s this: it is worth something to Lady MacAskival to
+have a decent young man treat her ward decently. My
+recommendations happen to carry considerable weight with
+Lady MacAskival. Mary does not need a husband or a
+lover, but she does need a friend. And I can see that you
+mean to move ahead in the world; and you deserve to,
+Logan. So if you can contrive to act as I suggest, where our
+Mary is concerned, I think I can guarantee that Lady MacAskival
+will give you a cheque for fifteen hundred pounds.
+I have no intention of bribing you: I know you’re above
+that. But you deserve some compensation for the disappointment
+you’ve had, and for my part, I’d not be sorry to
+give you a leg up in the world. Don’t feel insulted, Logan.
+I put it to you plainly: will you do us the honor of accepting
+that cheque?”</p>
+
+<p>What Logan might have done had he truly been the
+fictitious bank-clerk, he did not know. But as an experienced
+lawyer, he was disturbed by this offer. It was too
+much money for no real service. If once he had been inclined
+to mistake Dr. Jackman for a thorough scoundrel, it
+would not do now to make a model philanthropist of him.
+Of course he could not really take the money, being Hugh
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>Logan; yet he could accept the cheque as the fictitious Logan
+and destroy it later. What he said was, “If you’ll allow
+me, sir, I’ll sleep on your offer and give you my answer
+tomorrow.”</p>
+
+<p>“A sound policy.” Jackman lightly tapped his shoulder
+again. “And I believe I know already what your decision
+will be, Logan. Ah: checkmate.” Jackman had won the
+match with the thousand-year-old chessmen, despite his
+handicap.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Jackman rose. “We dine at seven, here in my study,
+Mr. Logan. In the Old House we have neither electricity
+nor running hot water—Lady MacAskival does not care for
+modern comfort—but old Agnes will bring hot water and
+a lamp to your room. I’ll show you there in a moment. But
+before the sun goes down, shall we enjoy the view from
+the battlements? I think the mist has lifted a trifle, though
+you come to us in a clouded month. By the way, Miss MacAskival
+will be at dinner with us. I ask you to say as little
+as possible to her about my observations, should you talk
+with her alone before dinner, or later—for her own interest,
+you understand, Logan. A personality as unbalanced as hers
+might be permanently affected by imprudent reproaches.
+I trust to your Scottish discretion. Just up the stair, now.”</p>
+
+<p>They emerged upon the lead of the roof from under the
+conical-capped turret. A narrow walk led round the
+gabled cap of the great tower, between the stone slabs of
+the gable itself and the machicolations of the battlements.
+Before them was Askival harbor, the sunken yacht black
+against the pier; and beyond, across the foggy ocean, the
+sun was descending in a diffused glory. Despite its climate,
+Carnglass was a beautiful island. A corncrake flew low
+above the tower. Far below, in the policies, a jungle of
+rhododendrons was in bloom. And five armed men were
+walking up to the gate in the Edwardian block of the Old
+House of Fear.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Royall!” Jackman called. The five looked up, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>the leader, that “walking cadaver,” formed his thin hands
+into a trumpet. Even at this distance, his pallid face and
+protruding teeth were ugly in the extreme: a queer sort of
+secretary, this skeleton-like man with a rifle slung over his
+shoulder. “Mr. Royall!” Jackman cried out. “What luck?”
+The five men below stared in astonishment at Logan, beside
+Jackman at the battlements. The four hangdog faces
+behind Royall aroused a vague discomfort at the back of
+Logan’s mind.</p>
+
+<p>“Rab and Carruthers have strayed, Dr. Jackman,” Royall
+called back. “Can you see them from the tower?” Though
+Jackman and Logan looked to north and east, there was
+not a sign of the other two men.</p>
+
+<p>“Is there no trace of Donley?” Jackman shouted. Gesturing
+dispiritedly, Royall shouted back, “I’ll explain when
+I come up.”</p>
+
+<p>“I doubt whether we can give you a decent dinner, Mr.
+Logan,” Jackman said as they turned back to the turret-stair.
+“Our cook, you understand, has been out with the
+searching-party, and we have had to press the butler into
+service in the kitchen. Have you ever lived in a state of
+siege? A mad island, this Carnglass.”</p>
+
+<p>“Fish and chips would do nicely, thank you,” Logan
+told him. “I’ve not had a bite these twenty hours.” He still
+was the bank-clerk; it might be difficult to abandon this
+play-acting.</p>
+
+<p>“Really, I scarcely think Miss MacAskival would care for
+fish and chips week in and week out, Logan.” Dr. Jackman
+said it drily. The man, after all, was doing no more than
+his duty in sheltering his friend’s ward from an unpromising
+suitor. Suppose, Logan thought, I were to tell him what
+I really am: how would he act then? Yet an impulse cautioned
+Logan to play this little deception according to its
+rules until he had talked with Miss Mary MacAskival, the
+girl of fifteen with the green eyes, the red hair, and the
+spotted past.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">8</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>On those cold and dark stairs, Miss Mary MacAskival met
+them, her quick and rounded little body, her rosy cheeks
+and lively eyes defying the barbarous spell of the old tower.
+She sent Logan a darting, inquiring glance, but it was to
+Jackman she spoke. “I heard the men outside,” she said.
+“Really, you ought to let me lead the search. I know every
+bush and cranny of Carnglass, but they’re stupid townfolk.”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman frowned. “I may have to lead them myself, Miss
+MacAskival: Rab and Carruthers seem to have lost their
+way. I’ll have a word with Royall. Will you be good enough
+to take Mr. Logan to see Lady MacAskival for a moment?
+And then bring him to the study for dinner. Don’t be
+long.” He sent out a hand as if to touch her lightly on the
+shoulder, but the girl drew back cleverly, almost as if unintentionally,
+against the curving stair-wall, and Jackman
+passed by her, ignoring the repulse. “Don’t forget the advice
+I gave you, Mr. Logan,” he said softly, disappearing
+down the spiral of the stair.</p>
+
+<p>At that instant, a most unpleasant recollection came into
+Logan’s head. An hour earlier, in the painted study, he had
+given his rucksack to Tompkins to be carried to his room.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span>And in that pack were his passport and other papers. That
+man Tompkins, by the look of him, would pry into everything,
+even had he been only butler in a normal country
+house; and this was no normal place. The moment Jackman
+talked with Tompkins, Logan’s real identity would be
+known; and then there would be trouble—though just
+what sort of trouble, Logan was not quite sure. His dismay
+showed in his face.</p>
+
+<p>Mary MacAskival was looking at him in concern. “What
+is it, Hugh?” (So it was “Hugh” even in private now, Logan
+thought, and on very short acquaintance, which seemed to
+confirm Dr. Jackman’s account of this odd little girl’s very
+forward ways with men.) Whatever else she was, she had a
+quick mind, though; for she added, after a moment’s pause,
+“Are you thinking of your rucksack? You needn’t. I met
+Tompkins on the stair and took it from him before he had
+any chance of a look into it. And I took your papers
+and put them into a hidie-hole—the Old House is mostly
+hidie-holes—where only I could possibly find them again.
+Then I put the rest of your things into your room. Do
+you mind? I can get the papers for you whenever you like,
+but we mustn’t let Dr. Jackman know you’re from America.
+You’d not be safe then. You’re not particularly safe even
+now. I’m sorry.” Those mobile red lips framed the “sorry”
+with a pathetic beauty. Indeed, it was a pity that Mary
+MacAskival was what she was.</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you, Miss MacAskival,” Logan said. “Probably
+I’ll need the papers after dinner. Shall we go down to Lady
+MacAskival now?” His voice sounded cold even to himself.
+He needed a little time to think. The girl’s charm—her
+glamour, literally—was too near to him on this clammy
+sepulchral stair. How did those rosy little feet of hers endure
+the damp, attractively bare as they were? But he must
+get his mind off the girl: she was only fifteen, and bad
+medicine.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>“Hugh!” Mary MacAskival spoke his name reproachfully,
+and now a little haughtily. “Hugh! It’s not only your
+papers you’re thinking of. What is it? This is a house of
+secrets, but you and I mustn’t have secrets from each other.
+You weren’t sent to me to keep secrets from me. What is
+it?” Logan hesitated, and the girl’s mind leaped swiftly to
+the usual conclusion any woman reaches when two men
+have been talking seriously in her absence. “What is it?
+Were you and Dr. Jackman talking of me?” In this instance,
+the woman’s instinct spoke truly.</p>
+
+<p>Logan looked her full in the face. “Yes, we were.”</p>
+
+<p>Over the girl’s delicious heart-shaped face, with its high
+cheek-bones and rather deep-set green eyes, spread a crimson
+flush, suffusing all the delicate white skin. It would
+have been a beautiful thing to watch, Logan thought, if it
+had not been a mark of guilt. The finely-moulded nose and
+chin went up. “Then you heard nothing good,” said Mary
+MacAskival, deliberately. She turned, as if to avert her telltale
+young face, and led the way down the stairs. “Dr. Jackman
+is the father of lies. But now I will take you to my
+aunt.”</p>
+
+<p>A doorway in the immense thickness of the medieval
+tower-wall led into the Renaissance range of the Old
+House. Here the plaster ceiling of a great book-lined corridor
+was moulded into baroque shells and swags and Lord
+knows what fantastic designs. An odor of damp and musty
+leather came from the shelves; this library could have been
+used little since Sir Alastair’s time. The little barefoot
+beauty walked beside him, still a trifle flushed and defiant,
+but apparently not hopeless of winning him over; Logan
+thought for a moment she actually meant to take his hand;
+but if she did have that impulse, she thought better of it.
+“After dinner,” she murmured, “if we can be alone, there
+are things that must be told you. Not here: there’s not
+enough time, and we could be overheard.” She noticed his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span>glance at her exquisitely narrow bare feet, which here trod
+upon Oriental carpet, in utter silence; she smiled a trifle
+coquettishly, and said, “I was reared barefoot, and don’t
+like shoes and stockings in the house. Besides, when I’m
+this way, I can scamper all over the house, and <i>they</i> don’t
+know where I am—nor when I’m listening to them. Do
+you mind? I know it’s not the way to receive foreign guests;
+but you are our first foreign guest, and I don’t think you
+stand on ceremony. Here’s my aunt’s bedroom; she never
+leaves it now. Only Agnes will be with her.” The girl
+pushed open a heavy carven door, and they entered an
+immense gloomy room.</p>
+
+<p>There the walls were hung from cornice to floor with
+square panels of leather, stamped in gold leaf with some
+intricate pattern of dancing figures; Logan thought he
+made out the figure of a capering goat in this design, but
+could not be sure in the twilight of the room. These hangings
+must have been long neglected, for splotches of white
+water-stain showed here and there, and some of the panels
+had pulled almost loose from the stitching that held them
+one to another, so that the stone of the walls showed
+through the gaps. Nearly in the middle of the room stood
+a vast ancient canopied bed, the curtains drawn back. Beside
+it, huddled on a stool, an old serving-woman looked
+with lacklustre eyes at Logan, cringing aside to let him
+approach the bed: this would be Agnes, the shawlie. Certainly
+she was timid—could she be trembling, or was it a
+slight palsy? Then he made out the shape under the rich
+covers upon the bed.</p>
+
+<p>Lady MacAskival lay with closed eyes, and she was very
+nearly a corpse: almost bloodless, and her face and hands
+grotesquely wrinkled. Could this pallid immobile thing
+once have been a beautiful woman of fashion, no better
+than she should have been—like little Mary MacAskival,
+perhaps? At their best, Logan suspected, the features must
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span>have been slightly vulgar. Mary MacAskival slid between
+him and the bed-rail. “Aunt!” she whispered, very low.
+“Aunt, Mr. Logan has come.”</p>
+
+<p>The wrinkled eyelids slid back, snakelike. The fingers of
+the desiccated left hand stirred slightly. The withered lips
+writhed, almost as if the ancient creature would have burst
+into a scream, but no sound came forth.</p>
+
+<p>“Aunt,” said Mary MacAskival, “he may be trusted.”</p>
+
+<p>Those purblind eyes of the failing woman flickered, for
+a moment or two, with intelligence. But Logan could not
+have meant much to her; possibly he was but a dream
+within a dream, drifting through limbo, less unpleasant
+than the terrors that often clustered round the bedstead.
+For either this old woman was drugged, Logan thought, or
+else she existed, tortoise-like and impotent, in a realm of
+perpetual terror. In those weary eyes was frozen fright,
+fright grown so familiar that it was almost identical with
+consciousness. What kept her alive? Surely she would have
+been happy to escape from this terror—unless she fancied
+that worse horrors lay in wait for her beyond the grave.</p>
+
+<p>Now her lips moved, and very faint sounds came forth.
+“Not Alastair,” Lady MacAskival whispered. “Not Alastair.
+Good. Go—go with him, Mary. When I am done. He is not
+the goat, no. Is he Askival? Is he flesh? In Carnglass it is all
+mist.” The lids slid back again; the left hand ceased to claw
+at the covers; one would have thought the woman dead,
+had not nostrils and chest stirred ever so slightly with her
+labored breathing. Mary MacAskival drew Logan through
+the still room to the door.</p>
+
+<p>They were back in the book-lined corridor. “Is she under
+drugs?” Logan asked.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” said the girl, calmly enough, “only hypnotism—and
+terror. If you had seen the chairs rise up of themselves
+in this house, and eyes glowing in the dark where no living
+thing could be, and heard the footsteps in this hall, and if
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>you were very old—why, I think even you would lie there
+like my aunt, Hugh.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who did these things?”</p>
+
+<p>“Dr. Jackman and Mr. Royall—who else? They have
+come near to putting me out of my wits. And now and then
+they put Dr. Jackman himself out of his wits. He believes,
+in part at least, though Mr. Royall does not, I think. Dr.
+Jackman has said he will call old Sir Alastair from under
+the stone by St. Merin’s Chapel. He has said he has made
+Sir Alastair walk down this very passage where you and I
+stand.”</p>
+
+<p>Logan looked involuntarily over his shoulder: but of
+course there was nothing but mouldy books and hangings
+and family portraits. In this strange place, minds might
+scamper after any vagary. “Does your aunt wish to see her
+dead husband?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not she. She feared him while he lived, and she feared
+him more once he died; and things lie heavy on her conscience.
+She will give Dr. Jackman anything he wants, so
+long as he keeps Sir Alastair this side of her bedroom door.”
+The girl was almost conversational about it all: surely she
+was either quite mad, or had a grip upon her nerves
+stronger than that of any woman Logan had known. What
+lay at her heart, Logan could not even guess; what could
+be seen was delectable enough, but Logan put no trust in
+her. Yet, trollop though she might be, Logan resolved to
+play his masquerade a little while yet, so far as Jackman
+was concerned, for her sake and his own.</p>
+
+<p>“Now tell me this, Miss MacAskival,” said Logan, “just
+how old....” Then he heard something in the passage,
+toward the tower; and so did the girl; and they turned
+simultaneously. Logan felt tempted to reach for the little
+gun under his tweed jacket, but refrained. And, after all,
+it was only that shifty butler. “Dinner is served. Miss MacAskival,”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>Tompkins murmured, quite deferentially, and
+withdrew back toward the tower.</p>
+
+<p>“Later,” Mary MacAskival said, very low, as they followed
+Tompkins. “Later I’ll tell you everything that can
+be told. Now you must meet Mr. Royall.” They went
+up the ancient stairs again, and passed into the study. It
+was dark now, but the study was cheerful enough. Many
+candles, in eighteenth-century silver candlesticks, had been
+lit; a square table was laid with a cloth and good china;
+there was soup being kept warm by a paraffin lamp on a
+sideboard. Tompkins had gone down somewhere to the
+kitchen, assisted by a footman whose grumbling voice
+Logan could hear below—Anderson, perhaps; and Jackman
+and Royall were not yet in the room: doubtless the
+two of them were discussing Hugh Logan thoroughly. Mary
+MacAskival, leaning gracefully against the piano which
+occupied a corner, pointed a little finger toward the
+painted ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you know what <i>that</i> is?” She meant the painted
+monster called the Firgower, only dimly visible by the
+candlelight, away up there in the shadows. “Oh, Dr. Jackman
+told you? He should: for he <i>is</i> the Firgower, you
+know. Why do you look at me so queerly? Of course Dr.
+Jackman is the Firgower; he’d tell you so himself, if he
+were candid. He has told me so. You saw the hole in his
+forehead: that’s his third eye. He sees Sir Alastair MacAskival
+with his third eye, and tells my aunt.” She took a
+candlestick from the table, and, standing on tiptoe, lifted
+it as high toward the ceiling as her little body could reach.
+“Now come here, Hugh Logan, and look close.”</p>
+
+<p>The painted horrid goat-face of the Firgower stared
+down at Logan; it seemed to smirk and leer and scowl all
+at once. “Its forehead—look,” the girl went on.</p>
+
+<p>Now Logan could make out that in the middle of that
+painted forehead, with horns sprouting above it, was a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span>third eye, faintly visible. It was much less distinct than the
+two normal goat-slit eyes, but it was very like them. “I
+don’t know whether it was painted so,” Mary MacAskival
+murmured in Logan’s ear, leaning a pretty hand on his
+shoulder, “or whether that nasty third eye wore on the
+nerves of Sir Alastair or someone else, so that perhaps someone
+put a trifle of white paint over it. It’s no less an eye
+than Dr. Jackman’s. Do you understand? That’s Dr. Jackman’s
+portrait, so to speak. I’m ever so glad <i>you</i> do not
+have a third eye.”</p>
+
+<p>Logan turned his head to look at this queer little lovely
+creature. Was she lunatic, coquette, or infinitely subtle?
+They two stood so close together that his nose touched hers.
+His right arm almost went round her, as she stood there on
+tiptoe; but just then boots sounded on the stair, and Miss
+MacAskival drew away. “My poor bare feet!” she said. “I’m
+forgetting my manners. Whatever would they say at the
+convent? They never let young ladies dine there barefoot,
+you know. I leave you to Dr. Jackman and his secretary,
+but I’ll be back before the soup has gone quite cold.” With
+a little swirl of her skirt, she sprang, rather than stepped,
+through the heavy doorway, and was gone.</p>
+
+<p>She must have passed Jackman and Royall on the stair,
+for they came in immediately. “Mr. Logan,” Jackman said,
+“Mr. Royall, my secretary.” The death’s-head secretary
+nodded curtly. Once the man began to speak, Logan perceived
+with relief that he was an Englishman, like Jackman,
+though probably from Yorkshire; had he been a Scot,
+he might have seen through Logan’s masquerade. Logan
+would talk as little as possible to the Scots among the servants,
+lest he give himself away.</p>
+
+<p>Royall made some perfunctory observations about the
+hunt for Donley, the weather, and all that. A cold fish, but
+a keen one, Logan hazarded. He was well educated, surely;
+Logan suspected that he might once have been a fairly
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span>high-ranking civil servant; somehow there was the mark of
+Winchester school upon him. Yet now he was secretary to
+this pseudo-doctor, in an island at the back of beyond.
+Why? Had Royall been dismissed from some civil post—for
+unreliability of sorts? The man was sick; the signs of a
+gnawing illness were plain upon his pallid face; and yet
+Logan guessed—though perhaps he was becoming fanciful,
+in this house of shadows—that the real cause of his trouble
+was some sickness not of the body, but of the spirit. Could
+one trust Royall? If one were of the same faith, undoubtedly;
+on the man’s grim features was set fanaticism, not
+simple criminality.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you have a taste for letters, Mr. Logan?” Royall
+inquired abruptly, in his hoarse voice. Jackman had said
+very little, but stood back in the shadows, watching, as if
+he had agreed to let his secretary do the prying this night.
+Tompkins came round with a tray of sherry-glasses, and
+Logan sipped before he replied.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, now, Mr. Royall,” Logan said, “I must admit I am
+fond of Rabbie Burns. Burns, sir, is the poet of the Scottish
+nation. No nonsense for Rabbie Burns. I don’t mind saying,
+Mr. Royall, that at the British Linen Bank, Lawnmarket
+Branch, we know an honest man’s the noblest work
+of God. How does Burns express it, sir? ‘The rank is but the
+guinea’s stamp....’”</p>
+
+<p>Here Mary MacAskival returned, with neat shoes on her
+feet, and cotton stockings. Jackman and Royall bowed to
+her slightly, and the four of them sat down to dinner,
+Tompkins putting the soup before them. Without bothering
+to taste his soup, Royall pursued the topic.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose you know, Mr. Logan, that Burns is perhaps
+the most popular English writer in the Soviet Union today.”
+Royall’s sunken eyes seemed to expect some significant
+response to this.</p>
+
+<p>“Indeed, sir?” Logan said, ingenuously. “Why, now, I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span>would have thought there would be difficulties in doing
+Rabbie Burns into the Russian tongue.”</p>
+
+<p>“The Soviet Russians, Mr. Logan, are masters of translation.
+Yes, they appreciate Burns. At a conference in the
+Crimea, not so very long ago, I had the honor to be asked
+to read Burns aloud, in English, to a group of intellectuals.
+I found they especially enjoyed the final stanza of ‘For a’
+That and a’ That.’ How does it go—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="first1">‘For a’ that, and a’ that,</div>
+<div class="indent">It’s comin’ yet, for a’ that,</div>
+<div class="verse">That man to man, the warld o’er,</div>
+<div class="indent">Shall brothers be for a’ that.’</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Do I have it quite right, Mr. Logan?” Royall gave him
+another long stare.</p>
+
+<p>“Aye, as I mind it, it goes so, Mr. Royall. Very sound
+sentiments—brothers the world o’er.” Logan smiled at
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Royall hesitated; then, “Would you care to give me a
+gloss on those lines, Mr. Logan?”</p>
+
+<p>Logan looked puzzled, as indeed he was. “A gloss, sir?
+Now how do you mean? A commentary?”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Royall thought some remarks might occur to your
+mind, Mr. Logan,” Jackman put in. “Concerning international
+brotherhood, perhaps.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, no, Dr. Jackman, I do not believe I could add
+anything.” Logan turned, simpering, to Mary MacAskival.
+“Do you think of a proper commentary, Mary, darling?”
+The girl shook her head slowly; her eyes, their lids half
+lowered, moved uneasily from Jackman to Royall. “Nevertheless,
+gentlemen,” Logan went on, still very much the
+Edinburgh clerk, “we’ve had many a serious discussion of
+Rabbie Burns in the West End Young Men’s Discussion
+Club. There’s profound meaning in Rabbie Burns. Profound.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span>Royall’s eyes never had ceased to stare at Logan. Now
+Royall said, “An acquaintance of mine who sometimes
+visits Edinburgh is an admirer of Burns. Possibly you have
+met him: a Captain Gare.”</p>
+
+<p>Logan’s training as a lawyer served him well at that
+moment, for his fatuous smile did not fade, nor did he
+start. “No, sir,” he told Royall, “I don’t believe I’ve had
+the honor of making the gentleman’s acquaintance.”</p>
+
+<p>“And then,” said Royall, “I think of a commission agent
+in Glasgow, a man of the people, who often has Burns on
+the tip of his tongue. Perhaps you have encountered him.
+His name is Dowie, Jim Dowie.”</p>
+
+<p>“Dowie? I know a solicitor’s clerk of that name in Dalkeith;
+but he reads only American thrillers, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“So, Royall,” Dr. Jackman interjected, “it seems that our
+Mr. Logan here is not a member, after all, of the little
+circle you had in mind. You were quite mistaken, I fear;
+I told you he wouldn’t be. Mr. Logan is a very honest and
+industrious rising young bank-clerk, I’m sure. But speaking
+of your national poet Burns, I call to mind a verse you
+might take to heart—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="first1">‘My love she’s but a lassie yet,</div>
+<div class="verse">My love she’s but a lassie yet,</div>
+<div class="verse">We’ll let her stand a year or twa,</div>
+<div class="verse">She’ll no be half sae saucy yet.’</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Apropos, Mr. Logan?”</p>
+
+<p>The butler brought the main course, boiled mutton and
+potatoes, before Logan had to reply. Logan noticed, as
+Tompkins served, that Mary MacAskival’s face had gone
+crimson at Jackman’s quotation, and then white again.</p>
+
+<p>“Tompkins,” Jackman said as the butler served him,
+“I take it that Carruthers and Rab have returned by this
+time?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, Dr. Jackman.” Logan saw that Tompkins’ hands
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>trembled slightly. “Neither of them, sir. Not hide nor
+hair.”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman bit his lip. “Royall, where do you suppose
+they’ve got to? It has been quite dark for more than an
+hour.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, well, sir,” Royall answered, “so long as the pair of
+them hang together, no harm can come to them. They’re
+both armed with good rifles, and they weren’t reared in
+ladies’ boudoirs. Rab knows rough country well enough,
+and something of this island. I suppose they may have
+been hot on Donley’s scent when the sun set, and bedded
+down in one of the farmhouses or keepers’ cottages. I last
+saw them toward St. Merin’s Chapel. No doubt they’ll report
+in the morning.” But Royall seemed to have no appetite
+for his mutton.</p>
+
+<p>Jackman shrugged. “No doubt, no doubt.” That unpleasant
+patch on his forehead twitched, almost as if he
+were trying to lift the lid of the third eye. He turned
+toward Logan. “As you were about to say...?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, Dr. Jackman”—but Logan smiled toward Mary
+MacAskival—“I had thought of another verse from Rabbie
+Burns, that I like better than yours; and it is this, sir—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="first1">‘Gaist nor bogle shalt thou fear;</div>
+<div class="verse">Thou’rt to Love and Heaven sae dear,</div>
+<div class="verse">Nocht of ill may come thee near,</div>
+<div class="indent">My bonnie dearie.’”</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>“I think that’s very pretty, Hugh,” Mary MacAskival
+told him. She looked toward Dr. Jackman: “‘Gaist nor
+bogle....’ A good phrase for the Old House, is it not, Dr.
+Jackman? But whatever can have become of Rab and
+Carruthers?”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman looked blacker still. “Leave that to us, if you
+please, my dear.” He seemed about to add something when
+Mary MacAskival rose and walked to the piano.</p>
+
+<p>“How very slow Tompkins is in bringing the sweet tonight!
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>May I play until he comes? Hugh, will you sing
+with me?”</p>
+
+<p>“You know I’ve no voice, Mary, darling,” Logan said,
+also rising, “but I’ll play to your singing.” He did, indeed,
+play the piano reasonably well. Miss MacAskival behaved
+as if she had always known it: wondrously clever, that
+girl, for fifteen years.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll set you the tune, Hugh,” she told him, seating herself
+at the piano, “and then you can take my place here,
+and I’ll sing you a song from Burns, if you like. Dr. Jackman,
+can you endure it? Mr. Royall?”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course,” Jackman told her, somewhat absently. He
+ran his lean hand slowly over his forehead. Royall said
+nothing: he had stalked to a window, opened it, and was
+staring uneasily into the night below.</p>
+
+<p>Miss MacAskival played pleasantly—an air Logan knew
+well, “Charlie He’s My Darling.” Logan took her place
+at the piano then, and she stood and began to sing. Her
+young voice was full and tolerably trained, and very sweet.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="first2">“An’ Charlie he’s my darling,</div>
+<div class="verse">My darling, my darling,</div>
+<div class="verse">Charlie he’s my darling,</div>
+<div class="indent">The young Chevalier.”</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The night air of Carnglass crept into the ancient room
+through Royall’s open window. There came the cry of
+some night bird, winging past the Old House, and the
+heavy beat of the sea upon the pier of Askival harbor.
+Mary’s voice swelled up:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="first2">“Sae light’s he jimped up the stair,</div>
+<div class="indent">And tirled at the pin;</div>
+<div class="verse">And wha sae ready as hersel,</div>
+<div class="indent">To let the laddie in.”</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Then, above the noise of the ocean, there came an unnatural
+sound, echoing perhaps from the other side of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>Old House. It was a burst of horrid laughter, or so it
+seemed, ending in a desperate sob; then silence; then the
+high dreadful cackle again. “The devil!” cried Jackman,
+and leaped to join Royall at the window. Mary MacAskival
+shivered, but sang the last verse:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="first2">“It’s up yon hethery mountain,</div>
+<div class="indent">And down yon scroggy glen,</div>
+<div class="verse">We daur na gang a milking,</div>
+<div class="indent">For Charlie and his men.”</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>To Logan, the girl’s relative composure was as strange
+as the dreadful yelling outside, but he played loyally on
+until “Charlie and his men” died away. Then Mary swept
+from the piano to the window, and Logan was right
+behind her. The laughter, if laughter it was, had ceased;
+and nothing at all was to be seen through the mist. But in
+a moment, a shot was fired; and then three more shots,
+in quick succession, seemingly not far outside the Old
+House. Jackman and Royall ran for the stairs, and Mary
+and Logan after them.</p>
+
+<p>Through that great chill hodgepodge old house, past
+Lady MacAskival’s room, through an interior courtyard
+that had been roofed over, into the enormous Victorian
+block they ran, stumbling through passages and down
+flights of stairs, until at last the four of them burst into a
+big Victorian entrance-hall. About the closed door were
+clustered Tompkins and Ferd and Anderson and a fourth
+man whom Logan took to be Niven. They all had rifles
+at the ready, but no one had ventured to open the door.
+Jackman dashed among them and flung back the bolts:
+“See what it is, you fools.” None of the four seemed eager
+to investigate, but they followed Jackman and Royall a
+little way into the dark, and Mary MacAskival and Logan
+tagged after. A massive knob of the great rock on which
+the Old House stood jutted up close by the door, and
+Logan urged the girl toward it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span>“If anyone fires from out there,” he whispered to her,
+“we’ll be so many sitting ducks.”</p>
+
+<p>“No one will fire at us,” the girl said; but, obediently,
+she crouched behind the rock, peering round in the direction
+the men were looking.</p>
+
+<p>There came one more screech of hysterical laughter,
+and then a figure came into view, reeling, stumbling,
+slipping, but still holding a rifle. Only a few yards from
+the Old House, the man swung round to face the darkness
+from which he had emerged, brought his gun to his shoulder,
+and fired three more shots, wildly, toward nothing
+visible. There was as much chance of his hitting the moon,
+with the aim he took, as of winging any living thing in
+Carnglass. Then the man dropped his rifle altogether and
+came lurching on toward the entrance of the Old House,
+falling at last in a heap right at Jackman’s feet, giggling,
+moaning, choking.</p>
+
+<p>“Rab!” cried Jackman. “What the devil, Rab?” It was
+a very young man, thick-set and heavy-featured, with a
+great shock of hair. He was covered with little cuts, and
+his clothes were in rags. To judge by his gasping and
+gulping, he had run for miles. And he was quite out of
+his head. He squirmed at Jackman’s feet, and mumbled
+obscenities, and then burst once more into his screaming
+and terrified laugh.</p>
+
+<p>“Something has run him like a hare,” Royall said. “The
+wits are gone out of the man.” The four servants, hard
+cases though they looked, bunched together like so many
+rabbits. Stooping, Jackman took Rab by the shoulders
+and shook him mercilessly.</p>
+
+<p>“Rab!” Jackman hissed. “Rab! Speak, man, or I’ll give
+you worse than you’ve had already.” But Rab only sobbed
+for breath. “Pick up his rifle, Mr. Royall,” Jackman said,
+prodding Rab with his foot. Logan suspected that he gave
+the order to Royall for fear that none of the servants
+would obey it. Stooping, Royall slipped into the heather,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span>groped for the gun, found it, and hurried back, glancing
+over his lean shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>“Anderson and Ferd, lift this lump,” Jackman called
+out, “and drag him inside.” The whole party retreated
+through the wide doorway into the Victorian courtyard,
+and then back into the formal entrance-hall, barring the
+gates behind them; Anderson was left as sentry inside the
+great door. “Now you, Niven and Ferd, hold up this thing
+before me.” They supported the muttering Rab between
+them. Jackman slapped Rab’s bleeding face with his open
+palm, terribly hard. The young man ceased to moan; his
+eyes rolled. “Rab,” said Jackman, slowly and distinctly,
+“where the devil is Carruthers?”</p>
+
+<p>“O, it took him, it took him!” cried Rab, and lapsed
+into incoherence.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll have the heart out of you, Rab, if you don’t speak
+up. What took Carruthers?” Jackman slapped him again.</p>
+
+<p>Rab’s dull eyes widened. “It took Carruthers! Lagg
+took him, auld, wet Lagg! Lagg it was!” With that, Rab
+sank into a kind of fit, and Ferd and Niven pushed him
+down upon the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Jackman stood rigid. “No,” he said, perhaps to
+Royall, perhaps to himself. “No. Not Lagg.” Then he
+looked round, his face stiff and white, upon the little ring
+of men, and upon Logan and Mary MacAskival beyond
+them. “Get this creature to bed,” he said to Niven and
+Ferd. “Tie him in, if you must. Ignore his ravings. The
+fellow’s lost his nerve; Donley must have been after him.
+Royall, post someone atop the tower, and tell him to fire
+at anything that moves. Miss MacAskival, this is no scene
+for you. See if your aunt has been disturbed, and then get
+to your room. Logan, Tompkins will show you up. Stay
+in your rooms until I have you called for breakfast.” Then
+Jackman went out into the courtyard again, calling to
+Anderson.</p>
+
+<p>Tompkins, carrying a petrol lantern, led the girl and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span>Logan through the passages toward the Renaissance block.
+Outside Lady MacAskival’s room, Mary paused. “I’d best
+look in here, Hugh,” she said, “so I tell you good-night
+now.” Tompkins moved discreetly a few feet further down
+the passage, but Logan only pressed the girl’s hand. She
+contrived to smile at him. “Do you recollect that last
+stanza I sang?” she asked:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="first">“‘It’s up yon hethery mountain,</div>
+<div class="indent">And down yon scroggy glen,</div>
+<div class="verse">We daur na gang a milking,</div>
+<div class="indent">For Charlie and his men.’</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Take care this night, Hugh.” Then she was gone into the
+bedroom hung with Spanish leather.</p>
+
+<p>Tompkins led him to a decent smallish chamber on the
+floor above Lady MacAskival’s room, wished Logan a
+civil good-night, and slid away. There was no key in the
+lock upon the door, and no bolt. To shove furniture
+against the door, Logan felt, might seem unduly suspicious
+to Dr. Jackman; but he did it, all the same, jamming a
+chair-back under the doorknob, and reinforcing it by a
+small chest. He looked out his two windows; they were
+high and small, and almost impossible for anyone to reach
+even with very long ladders, for the rock fell sheer away
+below this portion of the Old House. The bed, if rather
+damp, was tolerable. He slid his pistol Meg under the
+pillow, and was dozing off in short order, with only the
+wind at the panes to break the stillness, and the distant
+growl of the combers. Logan was too tired to think of
+Rab, or Lagg, or Jackman, or Royall, or even of the green-eyed
+girl—to whom, in a fit of sympathy at the dinner-table,
+he had promised that she need fear neither ghost nor
+bogle while he was near. It was an unsecured pledge of
+questionable validity to an insecure girl of questionable
+antecedents.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">9</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Much later—it must have been past three in the morning—Logan
+was waked from his troubled sleep by a curious
+sound. His nerves on edge, he sat up in bed, scarcely
+knowing where he was, and befuddled by finding himself
+tangled in an old-fangled nightshirt, until he remembered
+that Tompkins had laid out for him this antique garment.
+The only source of light in the room was the extinguished
+candle, of course; and Logan reached for the candlestick,
+but thought better of it, and listened.</p>
+
+<p>The noise was the sound of slow sliding. Blinking, he
+looked toward the door. So far as he could see anything
+at all, it seemed to him that the door was very slightly
+ajar. And then he knew the source of the sliding-sound:
+someone must have dislodged slightly the chair he had
+used as barrier, must have got a hand round the edge of
+the door, and must be quietly shoving chair and reinforcing
+chest inward, so that whoever was outside might
+squeeze within.</p>
+
+<p>Logan snatched his pistol from under the pillow. It
+wouldn’t do to use the gun except in the last extremity,
+though. He slid silently out of bed to the floor, and rolled
+under the bedstead. If someone meant to cut his throat,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span>there in the blackness, whoever it was would stab an
+empty bed.</p>
+
+<p>That sliding-noise had ceased now; what had wanted to
+enter presumably had glided in. To Logan, taut on the
+floor under the bed, came the thought of Old Askival,
+who was supposed to walk the narrow passages of the Old
+House, and had driven the wastrel Donald to the New
+House. Whatever had entered surely made no noise at
+all: a thrill ran through Logan’s body. Holding his breath
+and straining his sight, after what seemed like a quarter
+of an hour—really some five seconds, probably—he made
+out the dimmest of dim shapes bending over the bed, its
+legs right before Logan’s nose. Gripping the pistol in
+his left hand, Logan seized an ankle of the intruder and
+gave a mighty tug.</p>
+
+<p>A stifled cry, and the thing was on the floor beside him,
+and Logan flung himself upon it in a tangle of arms and
+legs, thrusting the pistol against the thing’s head. The
+shape made very little resistance. Shape? The body under
+Logan was not a man’s shape. And most certainly it was
+not Lady MacAskival or old Agnes. “You’ve hurt my
+head,” the shape murmured, resentful and panting. In
+the faintest of whispers— “Really! Are men always so
+violent when they’re waked in the middle of the night?”</p>
+
+<p>It had been a near thing; that little pistol, thrust against
+the girl’s temple, might have gone off. “Oh!” said Logan,
+shocked and embarrassed. “Did I cut you?” He ran his
+hand through the mass of her hair, searching for a wound.</p>
+
+<p>“I think not,” the girl said, brushing aside his hand.
+“You were good enough merely to stun me. Now do you
+mind sitting somewhere else than on me? I’m rather out
+of breath. Sit on the bed. How queer you look in that
+nightgown! It must have been one of Sir Alastair’s, who
+was twice your size; I wonder it hangs together still. And
+keep your voice low, for Dr. Jackman walks the passages
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>at all hours, like a wraith, and he <i>would</i> put an end to
+Hugh Logan if he found me with you. I’m ever so sorry
+to put you in danger—or more danger—and to wake you
+from a sound sleep, and to invade your bedroom; but
+you and I must talk tonight. There, that’s much better!
+You do look silly, perched in that old nightgown on that
+old bed, but it can’t be helped. Oh, you have a little gun?
+That’s clever of you. I wish I had one of my own. I have
+keys—although Dr. Jackman doesn’t know it—to nearly
+every room in the house except the gunroom, and the
+cellars where they keep those explosives: Dr. Jackman
+put new locks on those. Do you mind if I sit on the other
+end of the bed? The floor’s rather hard. Thank you: now
+we can make matters clear.”</p>
+
+<p>The minx—Logan’s eyes, adjusted to the dark, could
+make her out vaguely—was fully dressed, except that she
+was barefoot, as usual. Either she was an idiot, which he
+doubted, or else she was the bravest woman he ever had
+come upon. “Miss MacAskival,” he said, “what is outside
+this house? What drove Rab out of his mind? It may be,
+I suppose, that Donley was forced back to land, after he
+took my boat; but he was a tired man when I saw him
+last, and I can’t imagine him knocking Carruthers on the
+head and chasing Rab right up to the door.”</p>
+
+<p>“Now that you have knocked <i>me</i> on the head,” said
+Mary MacAskival, “and have sat on me, you may as well
+commence calling me Mary, Hugh Logan. We’ve not time,
+just now, to talk of what may be outside; for I must tell you
+of what’s within. You have no faith in me, have you?
+You’ve been talking with Dr. Jackman. What did he tell
+you of me?”</p>
+
+<p>He had no faith in anyone in the Old House, Logan
+thought; indeed, he had begun to doubt his own sanity.
+But he would be blunt with this girl, and see if she could
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span>make a case for herself. “He told me, Mary MacAskival,”
+Logan said, “that you were eccentric.”</p>
+
+<p>There in the dark, the girl laughed softly; she was a cool
+one. “Why, that’s true enough, Hugh Logan: all the
+MacAskivals have their oddities. I fancy that old Mr. Duncan
+MacAskival, who sent you to me, has his peculiarities.”</p>
+
+<p>“That he has. But he’s no girl of fifteen.”</p>
+
+<p>“Fifteen?” She sounded startled. “Whatever do you
+mean?”</p>
+
+<p>“You are fifteen, aren’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Fifteen!” She stifled her merriment. “I’m past twenty,
+Hugh Logan, though it’s little I am. Whatever possessed
+Dr. Jackman to tell you such a thing?” Her voice rang true.</p>
+
+<p>“And he said you were too fond of men.”</p>
+
+<p>“Fond of men? I’m not fond of Dr. Jackman, I can tell
+you. I never see any men to be fond of, here in Carnglass,
+Dr. Jackman’s crew are half afraid of me—particularly
+Niven the tinker, who knows I am a witch—and I’m thoroughly
+afraid of them, although I never let them guess it.
+With whom am I supposed to be infatuated?” A tone of
+suppressed anger had come into her voice.</p>
+
+<p>“When you were thirteen, Jackman said, you—why, you
+loved a gardener here in Carnglass.”</p>
+
+<p>At first Logan thought she had begun to sob; but then
+he realized she was choking in an endeavor to keep from
+breaking into imprudent shrieks of laughter. “Malcolm
+Mor MacAskival,” she managed, at last. “Malcolm Mor!
+Of course I loved him. I do still. He carried messages for
+me and contrived to get them posted in Loch Boisdale, and
+so they discharged him. And he worships the ground I
+tread, because I am The MacAskival. He has a great white
+beard, and is upward of seventy. Are you jealous of him?”</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible not to believe her: Jackman was plausible,
+but Mary MacAskival was all candor. “What a consummate
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span>liar Jackman is!” Logan played with Donley’s
+little gun.</p>
+
+<p>“To be sure he is; didn’t I tell you so, Hugh? He lives by
+lies. But into nearly every lie he works a tiny grain of truth,
+for the sake of appearances. Well, then: what other mischief
+have I been working, according to your friend Dr. Jackman?”</p>
+
+<p>“He implied, Mary MacAskival, that you suffer from
+delusions of grandeur. He said you must have told me—by
+‘me’ he means our fictitious bank-clerk, of course—that you
+were to inherit Carnglass and all the rest from your aunt,
+while in truth you are a pauper.”</p>
+
+<p>“Would it matter to you if I were a pauper?” She was
+serious now; he thought her firm chin went up.</p>
+
+<p>“Not in the least.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, then, as a matter of fact, Hugh Logan, I have
+more money than has Lady MacAskival. She never has
+loved me, but she has no one else who signifies; and so,
+more than five years ago, she gifted Carnglass to me, and
+more than half her securities. She told me that would
+baffle the Exchequer; for in this country, you know, one
+can escape death-duties by giving away one’s property, so
+long as one does it five years before one’s death. Five years
+ago my aunt still had her wits about her—enough to make a
+lawful will, at any rate; and she put Carnglass and the
+rest into trust for me; and six months from now, when I
+am twenty-one, I can do what I like with my own.”</p>
+
+<p>This revelation reminded Logan of his proper business in
+Carnglass, which the troubles of the past few days had
+almost driven out of his head. “Then Lady MacAskival
+couldn’t sell Carnglass to my principal even if she chose?
+It’s yours? And will you sell?”</p>
+
+<p>“Hugh Logan! Here we sit whispering, with a gang of
+murderers and conspirators in the house, and The MacAskival
+honoring you with a call at four in the morning in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span>your bedchamber, and you talk of title-deeds! You <i>are</i> a
+man of law. But no, I wouldn’t sell: Carnglass is my world.
+Yet Duncan MacAskival being an old man, and a kinsman,
+and having his heart set on the matter, I might arrange for
+him a life-tenure of the Old House. And I, and any husband
+I might choose to have, could live at the New House.
+When I wrote Duncan MacAskival that last letter—the note
+that brought you here, Hugh—I made up my mind that I
+would not bring him here upon a wild-goose chase altogether.
+If a lease of the Old House will satisfy him, he
+shall have it. But Dr. Jackman will be a nasty tenant
+for us to evict, Hugh Logan.”</p>
+
+<p>And then, in part volunteering the story and in part
+prompted by Logan’s questions, the girl gave him her account
+of Dr. Edmund Jackman. Three years before, when
+Mary still had been at school, old Lady MacAskival had
+gone to London for a month, in winter. For half a century,
+Lady MacAskival had been very odd; and now whatever
+rationality remained to her was giving way. On her infrequent
+London visits, she had tended more and more
+to surround herself with peculiar company: Indian pseudo-mystics,
+and fortune-tellers with pretensions to decent
+manners, and mediums of various sorts. Lady MacAskival
+detested anything resembling orthodox religion, but rejoiced
+in any oddity which flirted with faces that glowered
+up from the abyss; and she believed, or half believed. She
+was ignorant, superstitious, vain, and rich—and she had
+a bad conscience. Moreover, she was extremely lonely. To
+her, in time, was presented a Dr. Edmund Jackman, “a
+scholar, my dear, and a progressive politician, and a diplomat,
+and a man who knows <i>all</i> about the occult. He has
+just come back from a trip to Roumania.” Dr. Edmund
+Jackman spent a great deal of time in Lady MacAskival’s
+London drawing-room, that winter three years gone. In
+the spring, he was invited to Carnglass, and came for a visit
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span>of two months. And then there was another visit, lengthier;
+and another.</p>
+
+<p>By the end of the year of lengthy visits, Edmund Jackman
+was wholly master of Lady MacAskival’s mind, or
+what remained of it; and master, too, of her money, and
+of Carnglass. Dr. Jackman was useful in many ways. He
+kept her avaricious London kinsfolk from troubling her.
+He took her affairs out of the hands of her ineffectual
+solicitors, and gave them his personal attention. Gradually
+he dismissed her feckless Island servants, even the farmhands,
+and reduced household costs, and brought in some
+hard-featured, but doubtless dependable, men from London
+and Glasgow, until only old Agnes remained of the
+former staff. He spent much of her income, too, on
+“schemes for political education.”</p>
+
+<p>This Mary MacAskival had learnt from the mumbling
+lips of her old aunt, in that darkened room hung with
+Spanish leather, listening to the ramblings of that stricken
+brain, convinced sometimes that she was near to madness
+herself. This she whispered to Hugh Logan, curled at the
+other end of the bed. And she had learnt other things
+from Dr. Jackman himself, and from Royall, and from
+scraps of servants’ conversation overheard in the passages.</p>
+
+<p>Her solitary years with Lady MacAskival had given the
+girl an insight into the old woman’s mind and soul, Logan
+perceived, so complete that she could speak almost for,
+rather than of, her dying aunt. She understood, and nearly
+shared, the terrors of that room hung with Spanish leather.
+And she knew what talents gave Jackman his power over
+the old woman.</p>
+
+<p>More than all his other services, what made Dr. Jackman
+indispensable to Lady MacAskival was this: he kept Sir
+Alastair away from the door of her room. Lady MacAskival
+always had suspected that Alastair was lurking outside that
+door, even though she had buried him under the great
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span>stone in St. Merin’s Chapel so many years ago. Every day
+she sent the footman with a message for Alastair to be
+placed in the tomb at St. Merin’s Chapel, imploring Alastair
+to forgive her, and to stay up there at the top of Carnglass
+where he belonged. Yet twice she had glimpsed
+Alastair, unrelenting, in the narrow passages. He <i>would</i>
+come back, and gobble at her bedroom door on windy
+nights, and she lay in dread that one night he might cross
+the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Jackman had saved her from that: he had bound Sir
+Alastair by a mystical chain, he told Lady MacAskival, and
+so long as she possessed the loyalty of Dr. Jackman, no tall
+stern old man, who ought to be in his tomb, would cross
+the threshold. Of course it was essential to retain the wholehearted
+loyalty of Dr. Jackman, and that could be secured
+by agreeing with him in all things. Once or twice, when she
+had demurred from some plan of his, Dr. Jackman had
+come to her bedside, with Mr. Royall beside him, and had
+described in awful detail what would be the consequences
+if Sir Alastair made his way in. She had fallen into a fit, and
+old Agnes had been too terrified to speak. At all costs, Dr.
+Edmund Jackman must be kept in a good humor; and
+sometimes the costs ran very high. It was a great pity that
+willful girl Mary did not take to Dr. Jackman.</p>
+
+<p>For months now, Dr. Jackman and Mr. Royall had lived
+at the Old House all the time, except for brief cruises about
+the islands. Dr. Jackman demonstrated to Lady MacAskival
+his control over the risen dead by certain seances in her
+room. Tables rose, and chairs fell over, and horrid white
+shapes loomed up—but never, Dr. Jackman promised, the
+shape of Alastair. And presently Dr. Jackman revealed to
+her that he always had been in Carnglass; and had been
+there infinitely long before she, as Miss Ann Robertson,
+had been married to Colonel Sir Alastair MacAskival. For
+Dr. Jackman was not simply human. He was a part of Carnglass,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>and its master from time out of mind. He had been
+there before the Viking rovers came. He was the Firgower,
+the Goat-Man. And he saw all things, past, present, and future,
+through his Third Eye, which quivered in the middle
+of his forehead. By watching Lady MacAskival with his
+Third Eye, he could relieve her of all pain, and put her
+to sleep at will.</p>
+
+<p>Yet it did not seem quite right that Dr. Jackman should
+marry her niece. He had told Lady MacAskival many times
+that he must do so; that the thing was ordered by the
+Presences under the rocks of Carnglass; that thus Carnglass
+would be his in the eyes of the puny law of men, as
+well as by the decree of nature. Still, it did not seem right.
+Mary belonged to the living, not to be a being beyond
+good and evil. Lady MacAskival dared not deny Dr. Jackman,
+however; she said only, in great fear and pain, “Then
+you must ask Mary herself.”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Jackman did not neglect Miss Mary MacAskival.
+Upon her he bestowed much valuable time, endeavoring to
+instruct her in progressive social views and in a proper
+understanding of occult lore. He had compelled her to
+come to him in his study at least an hour a day, to listen
+to his peculiar talk. Almost always he had been quite
+civil; but once or twice he had threatened her, and then he
+had been ghastly. He talked politics and necromancy to her,
+a queer mixture. The one, she thought, was as mad as the
+other, or perhaps the politics was a little the madder.</p>
+
+<p>“If I had known the least little bit about politics and
+economics and all that,” she said to Hugh, “Dr. Jackman
+would have converted me. But I was utterly ignorant, so
+he could make no impression. I was altogether too stupid.”
+The politics, so far as Logan could determine from Mary’s
+imperfect exposition, were Marxist, or a variant thereof.
+“He has been so eager to have me serve the Party,” she said.
+“But the Party, so far as I could make out, meant to destroy
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span>a great many people to bring about peace everywhere, and
+meant to make everybody precisely alike so everyone could
+be perfectly happy, forever and ever. That’s nonsense.
+You’re a solicitor—or is it a barrister, Hugh?—and you
+know. I don’t at all want to be like Dr. Jackman, or like
+Niven the tinker; and I don’t want them to be like me. So
+after a time I simply stared at Dr. Jackman, and said ‘Indeed?’
+now and then, and he grew discouraged. My tactics
+worked like a bomb.”</p>
+
+<p>“Like a bomb?” asked Hugh Logan, startled.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, you know—that’s one of the things we said at school,
+‘like a bomb.’ Everything good or successful is like a
+bomb. You know, don’t you?” Sometimes this astounding
+girl seemed old as the hills, and at other times younger than
+the fifteen years Jackman had assigned to her. She was a
+hoyden of sorts, but quite innocent. “Don’t you ever say
+‘like a bomb,’ Hugh? But then, I suppose you never attended
+a girls’ school.”</p>
+
+<p>So Jackman had abandoned his endeavor to enlist Miss
+MacAskival in The Cause. Yet he had persisted in his instruction
+in the occult. “He really believes in it all, Hugh.
+Mr. Royall doesn’t believe, or believes only a little; but
+Dr. Jackman is stranger than my old aunt. He was shot
+in the head in Spain—oh, did he tell you that?—and I think
+that he has been more clever and more dangerous in various
+ways since he came from the hospital; but also he sees
+things that no one else sees, and hears sounds that no one
+else hears. And he has become a part of Carnglass. I mean
+that. He has read everything that may be read concerning
+Carnglass; and all the old tales have got into his brain the
+way romances got into Don Quixote’s head: but so evilly,
+Hugh. He did not say he was the Firgower simply to
+frighten my aunt; he believes it. He frightens even Mr.
+Royall. And then, of a sudden, he will drop that weird
+talk and begin discussing politics. Or he may become quite
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span>sensible, and make plans to scout round the islands, and to
+keep in touch with people on the mainland, and to send
+messages to the Continent, and to set off gelignite when he’s
+ready.”</p>
+
+<p>“Explosives?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes, he has a crypt full of it; but I’ll tell you of that
+presently. He didn’t mean me to hear about the explosives,
+but there are places in my Old House where I can eavesdrop,
+if I must.” She seemed to take a schoolgirl satisfaction
+in that art.</p>
+
+<p>Royall, to judge by Mary MacAskival’s description, was
+what someone once called “the humanitarian with the
+guillotine.” Wholly devoted to Jackman, he was forever
+talking of the sufferings of the working classes. But he spoke
+of the men who served him and Jackman, and sometimes
+of people in general, as “that scum.” Systematic and humorless,
+once upon a time he had been a successful civil servant.
+Then, however, political fanaticism had swallowed him,
+and there remained of the man only an emaciated body and
+a hatred of life, which he disguised from himself as hatred
+of the “expropriating classes.” Mary MacAskival thought
+that Royall would have snuffed out her life, if it had
+served his interest—or the Party’s interest—with no more
+scruple than as if she had been a mouse.</p>
+
+<p>Edmund Jackman was more subtle and interesting.
+Possibly, Logan thought as he listened to the girl, Jackman
+once had known the good and had deliberately
+chosen the evil—and ever after had been haunted by that
+memory. “Evil, be thou my good.” Fearless and very
+clever, somewhere early in life he must have taken the
+sinister track. And never had he contrived to turn back.</p>
+
+<p>“When the horror is upon Dr. Jackman,” Mary was
+whispering, “I think I would faint, only that he reminds
+me of Rumpelstiltskin in the fairy tale, and that makes me
+laugh inside, even though the rest of me is shaking.” The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>horror came upon him once or twice nearly every day, and
+then he looked like a damned soul. “I think he is remembering
+things he has done. Once, when he meant to break
+my will, he hinted at what he had to do in Spain. I think
+he killed patients in hospitals with doses of poison, so that
+they would not tell tales. Perhaps, in the beginning, the
+people who gave him his orders saw the streak of good
+in him, and so they hardened him by ordering him to do
+all the worst things that could be done.” The girl shivered.</p>
+
+<p>After the civil war in Spain, it seemed, Jackman had
+vanished into eastern Europe; and had reappeared in England
+for a time during the second World War; and next
+had turned up in Roumania. There, somehow, he had
+fallen into disfavor with the people who gave him his
+orders. Possibly he had gone too far in his measures, having
+come to love terror for its own sake. Or perhaps he had
+been chosen as a scapegoat, during a period when there
+were official pretences of moderation. In any event, he had
+fled out of Roumania, four years ago, returning to London;
+and then he had come to Carnglass. Royall, it seemed, had
+been with Jackman in Roumania, and the two of them had
+done things there of which they preferred not to speak even
+to each other. “Royall is like a ghost: I mean that he has no
+conscience left. But Jackman, I think, has memories of the
+difference between wrong and right, and so the horror
+comes upon him.”</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the girl leaned closer to Logan, who had been
+about to speak, and put her little hand upon his mouth.
+“Hush!”—this scarcely more than a hiss. Her ears, attuned
+to the creaks and echoes of the place, had detected something
+his had not. Yes: now there were stealthy footfalls
+in the passage. Someone moved outside the door of the
+room; seemed to hesitate there; passed on. The girl’s
+fingers were gripping Logan’s shoulder, and his hand
+shook as he held his pistol ready. But whatever had been
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span>outside was gone elsewhere in the labyrinth of the Old
+House.</p>
+
+<p>How ever had Mary MacAskival endured, in her solitude,
+the dread strain of this perilous ordeal, month on
+month? “I say,” she asked him, abruptly, as if she had read
+his mind, “do you think I’m mad myself?” He squeezed her
+little hand for answer. “Sometimes I wonder if I am,”
+she went on, “for it seems like one unending nightmare:
+until you came, that is.”</p>
+
+<p>Once Jackman had said to her, “Miss MacAskival, I
+felicitate you on your strength of mind.” Considering
+what the man was, he had been almost gentle with her;
+probably his admiration was genuine. He tolerated no
+rudeness toward her from any of his rough men.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t think he is interested in women as most men
+are,” Mary MacAskival went on. Did she blush in the darkness?
+“He is in love with power and terror. He wants me
+only because with me he could have Carnglass a while
+longer, and because I have money. And, I suppose, because
+he enjoys crushing other people’s minds. He has tried to
+crush mine. Had he not been so busy with other things, I
+believe he would have defeated me long ago.”</p>
+
+<p>So long as her aunt continued to live, Jackman had no
+urgent motive to compel the girl to marry him: his ascendancy
+over Lady MacAskival gave him Carnglass and
+enough money. But as Lady MacAskival sank, now rarely
+rising from her bed, the day grew near when Jackman
+must marry the girl, or else run the danger of exposure
+and ruin.</p>
+
+<p>“Once I was rash,” Mary said. “I told him and Royall
+that I had tolerated them only because they held my aunt’s
+life as security. I said that when she was gone, I’d tell
+everything I knew to the police.</p>
+
+<p>“Dr. Jackman smiled a horrid smile. ‘Who would believe
+a mad girl?’ was what he said. And then he told me
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span>that if he should fail to persuade me to remain loyal to
+him, he and Royall might do things to me—‘painful
+measures, Miss MacAskival, painful for all of us’—that
+would make me into a different person, so that I could
+never be the same again. There were ‘special mental disciplines,’
+he told me, and ‘certain shock treatments.’ It
+would be ever so much pleasanter if I simply did as he
+told me to. And he could be sure that I would do as he
+wished if I were to marry him. That was once when the
+horror came upon him.”</p>
+
+<p>Here, at last, the girl burst into suppressed sobs. Logan’s
+arm went round her shoulders. “Sometimes I have thought,”
+she mumbled, “that I ought to give way. So much easier!
+But I suppose I was too proud.”</p>
+
+<p>The fierce old blood of the chieftains of MacAskival,
+Logan thought, was strong in her; she was a sport in more
+ways than one. It would be a pleasure for him, if ever he
+got the chance—which, at the moment, seemed slim—to
+settle accounts on her behalf with Edmund Jackman.</p>
+
+<p>Why, until she wrote to Duncan MacAskival, had she
+made no attempt to expose Jackman, or to escape? Because
+it was only gradually she had come to understand what
+Jackman and Royall were after; and she had known, too,
+that her aunt’s life was in their hands, and that they would
+not hesitate to snuff it out if they were pushed. From the
+moment Jackman established himself in the Old House, it
+had become increasingly difficult to send any message out
+of the island; a fortnight ago, it had become virtually impossible;
+and since Donley’s flight, she had not been permitted
+even to leave the house.</p>
+
+<p>And there was another reason: that room in the cellars
+full of explosives. She thought that Jackman was eager to
+use them, if there were any chance for it, to destroy certain
+mysterious things that the government was building in
+the Outer Isles; but Royall was trying to restrain him.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span>“Dr. Jackman,” she had overheard him say once, “you
+know what exceeding instructions has brought us already.
+Until word comes from Bruhl....” Royall was willing,
+she suspected, to rest content with gathering what information
+they could about those mysterious projects, and transmitting
+it to someone in London. But in Jackman there
+was some terrible compulsion to blow everything apart.
+“If he could, I do believe, he would explode all the world
+into little bits.”</p>
+
+<p>So there was this: if Jackman were brought to bay, and
+had the opportunity, very probably he would set off the
+gelignite in the crypt. The Old House would go, and everyone
+in it; and for Mary MacAskival, the Old House and
+Carnglass were the center of the universe. “I know nothing
+about politics,” she told Logan, rather apologetically. “I
+suppose Jackman and Royall are traitors, and might do
+terrible harm to the country. But Carnglass is my country.
+I think of the Old House first.” Jackman would destroy
+himself and everyone in the Old House, almost certainly,
+if he despaired. “What was it the old Greek said: ‘When I
+am dead, let earth be mixed with fire’? I learnt that at
+school. Well, that is how Dr. Jackman thinks.”</p>
+
+<p>She had lived with the terror, hoping vaguely that
+Jackman’s plans might alter and he and his men go away;
+that the authorities in London or Glasgow might discover
+the scheme and descend before Jackman could act. It was
+only as her aunt had sunk toward her end that the girl had
+been roused to some plan of action, what with her own
+imminent danger. And so she had got off the note to
+Duncan MacAskival, a schoolgirl’s design; yet it had succeeded
+so far as to bring Logan to her. “Until you came,
+I had no one at all to talk with.” Her sobbing broke out
+again.</p>
+
+<p>Jackman and Royall, she was convinced, had no notion
+of what she had done or of Logan’s real identity. Once
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>Logan had told her of his encounters with Dowie and Gare,
+she said that Duncan MacAskival’s cablegrams could not
+have reached Carnglass. The storms, and the fortunate
+burning of the boats, had prevented that. There was a
+wireless in the Old House, and Jackman sometimes used
+it, cautiously, in sending messages in code to people on
+the mainland; but some ten days before Lagg and Donley
+disappeared, part of the wireless set had slipped out of
+sight. “They thought Lagg, who was acting strangely, must
+have stolen it,” she said. “He didn’t. I did.” This girl was
+a paragon. “I do believe that if they knew who you are,”
+she went on, “they would make away with you, just as they
+did with Mr. Lagg”—for Logan had told her, hurriedly,
+what Donley had said of Lagg’s end.</p>
+
+<p>In a very little while, Logan realized of a sudden, it
+would be dawn; and Mary MacAskival must be gone from
+his room before then. “Mary,” he said, “what is this about
+Lagg? Could he be alive? Could that fellow Rab really have
+seen him? Who is outside this house? Is it Donley, or is it
+only these fellows’ imagination?”</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated. “I do not know,” she said. Was she concealing
+something? “Perhaps I ought to—but there isn’t
+time now. Listen: someone’s stirring already, somewhere
+below. There’s so much more to tell you, but it must wait.
+Jackman will keep us apart if he can, but perhaps he’ll
+be out with the men today, hunting for Donley. Now I
+must run.” There were, indeed, the first faint flushes of the
+Hebridean spring dawn visible through the windows. She
+leaned toward Logan. “You may kiss my cheek, if you like,
+for being a brave man.” Logan did that, but he said, “You
+seemed to be friendlier yesterday.” She sprang up, averting
+her face, and went to the door, and pressed an ear against
+it; then she opened it a crack, and peered out; then waved
+a little hand, and slipped through, and was gone. With this
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span>sudden vanishing, Logan almost doubted that the strange
+little creature ever had crouched sobbing beside him.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Logan lay awake on his bed after that, as the sun came
+up, full of dreads—more, perhaps, for the girl than for
+himself, but sufficiently concerned for Number One. About
+seven, there was a rap at his door, and Tompkins, that
+pillar of varnished iniquity, brought him morning tea.
+Logan would not have been surprised to be knifed as he
+took the tray, but Tompkins said only, “Foggy again today,
+sir,” and closed the door behind him. Leaving the tea untasted,
+Logan shaved with the hot water Tompkins had
+brought, hurriedly dressed, and found his way downstairs
+to the book-lined corridor, where for a few minutes he
+idled about, with a feeling of complete helplessness. Then
+Royall appeared from somewhere, glancing at him suspiciously;
+but Royall was civil enough, in his deathly way,
+and told him that he could breakfast in the study in the
+tower.</p>
+
+<p>He breakfasted alone. Of Mary, there was no sign; and
+Tompkins told him that “Dr. Jackman and Mr. Royall and
+some of the men have gone out, sir, hunting that Donley
+person.” The breakfast was meagre, porridge and a scrambled
+egg of sorts—powdered egg, Logan thought. In a besieged
+house, supplies soon ran low. Outside the small windows,
+the mist clung to the gray stone. He would have liked
+to pry into the drawers of desk and table, but Tompkins or
+someone else might enter at any moment. His pistol was invisible
+under his heavy tweed jacket; that was something.
+How would it all end? He was a pawn in this deep game,
+and presently some one would sweep him off the board,
+unless Donley had got to the mainland and delivered his
+note to the police. And even if a police-launch should put
+in at Askival harbor, could that devil Jackman be prevented
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span>from sending everyone in the house up in smoke?
+To ponder these things, in a deceptive calm, really was
+the strangest part of the nightmare into which he had got
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>About half-past eight, Mary MacAskival ran into the
+study—shod, for a change, and her face glowing with excitement.
+The nerves that girl must have! Logan put down
+his pipe, not knowing whether he was expected to shake
+hands or to kiss her; but she gave him time for neither.
+“Hugh,” she said, “Hugh Logan, I saw them from my
+window! Jackman and Royall and the others: they’re bringing
+something up from the shore, dragging it. Come down
+with me, and we’ll go out to meet them.”</p>
+
+<p>Through that immense house they ran, out into the
+enclosed courtyard of the Victorian block. By the big door,
+or rather gate, three of the men were standing: Tompkins,
+and Anderson the footman (who looked unpleasantly like
+his Gallowgate brother), and a dark grinning man, supple
+and compact, who must be Ferd Caggia, the cook. A rifle
+lay at an angle against the wall by the door, back of Anderson.
+Caggia had just passed an odd green bottle—was it the
+old rum?—to Anderson, who took a swig from it. The three
+men stared at Logan and the girl, Anderson leering as he
+wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Mary MacAskival marched straight up to the door,
+Logan by her side, she quite ignoring the men until she
+stood right before Anderson, who barred the way. Yes, it
+was rum Anderson smelt of. “Open the door,” she said,
+calmly. “Mr. Logan and I are going out to meet Dr. Jackman.”</p>
+
+<p>“What’ll ye gie me if I do?” Anderson’s words came
+thickly; the man was drunk. Anderson winked at Tompkins
+and Ferd for approval.</p>
+
+<p>“Be good enough to open it.” Mary MacAskival’s green
+eyes glittered.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>“Not for a young hizzie, not me.” Anderson laughed
+harshly, leaning against the door. Mary MacAskival reached
+past him and pulled at the bolt; it slid back.</p>
+
+<p>Then Anderson took her round the waist, staring defiantly
+at Logan. “Ye’ll gie me something, whether I let ye
+oot or no, ma fine leddie.” With one raw fist, he pulled at
+the girl’s jacket. Logan took a step forward and gave Anderson
+the back of his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Caught off balance, Anderson crashed against the door.
+His big head jerked back, his arm flew away from the girl,
+and he fell.</p>
+
+<p>The next second, Anderson was up from the flagstones,
+and everything happened at once. “Davie, you know what
+Dr....” Tompkins began, in mild remonstrance. Ferd
+Caggia glided to one side, still grinning, as if he were a
+spectator at a match for his especial amusement. And tall
+Davie Anderson, rising, had grasped the rifle; already
+its muzzle was swinging upward, toward Logan, and there
+was killing in Anderson’s tipsy eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Logan’s reaction was instinctive and the product of his
+army years, not prudential. Very swiftly, he sent his hand
+into his armpit and flashed out the little pistol. “Anderson,”
+he said, distinctly, “don’t move. Don’t move at all.”
+The girl stood fixed by the unbolted door, her eyes wide,
+very pale.</p>
+
+<p>Anderson’s mouth opened; the rifle in his grip sank
+toward the ground. Out of the corner of his eye, Logan
+saw Caggia glide smoothly toward his back, and saw
+Caggia’s hands slip down toward something protruding
+just above his belt; but still Caggia smiled. “Caggia,” said
+Logan, “bide where you are, man.” Tompkins quivered.</p>
+
+<p>Then, behind Anderson, the big door opened, and Dr.
+Jackman stepped softly in, his eyes sweeping across the little
+tableau. Without hesitation, Jackman snatched the rifle
+from Anderson’s hands and dealt the footman a terrible
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span>blow in the jaw with the butt of it. The man fell, stunned,
+and a tooth flew out of his mouth as he struck the flagstones.
+Behind Jackman, Royall entered; and after him,
+two more men, dragging something, and staring at the
+tableau as they came.</p>
+
+<p>Jackman kicked Anderson in the face. “I told you, you
+ape, to mind your manners. Caggia, get this fellow to
+his quarters. Powert, relieve Anderson on duty at the door”—this
+to one of the men behind him. “Mr. Logan, I was
+not aware that junior bank-clerks carried revolvers on their
+social calls.” Jackman’s words were smooth, but his face
+was twisted cruelly. Rumpelstiltskin, Logan thought. “Mr.
+Logan,” Jackman went on, even more suavely, “now that
+I have disposed of Anderson, you have no more need for
+that pistol. Be good enough to give it to me.” Jackman
+held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Royall was beside Jackman now, carrying a rifle; and
+Caggia was out of Logan’s line of vision, probably right
+at his unprotected back; and the girl, surrounded by men,
+was exposed to any shooting; and the odds were too great.
+Logan extended his palm, with the little pistol lying upon
+it, toward Jackman.</p>
+
+<p>Then Royall drew in his breath. “Dr. Jackman,” he
+said, hoarsely, “see what gun that is!”</p>
+
+<p>Plucking the pistol deftly out of Logan’s hand, Jackman
+examined it. “Quite right, Royall,” he observed. “It’s
+Donley’s gun Meg, isn’t it? Mr. Logan, my apologies: I
+was quite deceived by you—an excellent performance on
+your part. You are a young man of talents. After you took
+the gun from Donley, did you shoot him or drown him?”</p>
+
+<p>Only then did Logan see what the men had dragged into
+the courtyard. It was the battered dead body of Donley, still
+streaming with water. “Don’t look, my dear,” said Jackman
+to Mary, considerately. “A bit of flotsam, washed up near
+the pier.”</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">10</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Two more men had come into the courtyard, and stood
+staring. “Simmons,” said Dr. Jackman to one of them,
+“help Niven to get this body into the cellars, for the time
+being. Miss MacAskival, be so good as to go to your rooms
+and remain there until I send word. Well, Rab! Up and
+about? I take it that Donley here wasn’t on your heels last
+night? No, of course not. We haven’t yet found your friend
+Carruthers, but I trust that we will. Caggia, <i>do</i> get Anderson
+to his bed, for he’s sprinkling blood all over the flags,
+and there’s a lady present.”</p>
+
+<p>The sight of blood seemed to put Edmund Jackman into
+excellent form. Shock-headed Rab gazed at him vacantly,
+as if still dazed by his last evening’s encounter with
+shadowy pursuers. “Well,” Jackman went on cheerfully,
+“poor Till—he’s lost the sight of one eye forever, I’m sure—is
+quits with Seamus Donley now. Go up and tell him the
+news, Tompkins.”</p>
+
+<p>Mary, in the midst of this hard crew, was looking at
+Logan with dismay in her eyes. “Hugh,” she said,
+“Hugh ...” and stretched out a hand toward him. Jackman
+shot a malign glance at her.</p>
+
+<p>“You’d best go, Mary,” Logan told her, with what assurance
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span>he could summon up. She turned and fled into
+the Old House.</p>
+
+<p>Logan could conjecture the fate of Donley. Tired and
+wounded, the old terrorist must have been flung on the
+skerries by that cruel sea; the boat would have broken up;
+and his body, beaten against the rocks, had washed round
+to the harbor at the other end of Carnglass. In this grim
+moment, Logan had little time to pity Donley. It could
+not have been Donley, then, returned, who hunted Rab and
+Carruthers through the night. Rab might have fired only
+at imaginary stalkers, in this eerie island. But then what
+had become of Carruthers? Lagg had taken him, Rab had
+screamed in his hysteria last night. Was it possible that,
+after all, Lagg had not been killed? But if he had not, how
+could he have existed alone and invisible these several days;
+and how could a sly fat Galloway factor have made away
+with one seasoned ruffian and driven another out of his
+wits?</p>
+
+<p>Except for Powert, standing sentry at the gate, Logan
+now was left alone in the courtyard with Jackman and
+Royall. “Well, Mr. Logan,” Jackman was saying to him,
+“there are few things in this vale of tears more interesting
+than an accomplished adversary. I prize you.” He was playing
+with that little pistol Meg. “Royall, we’ll take Mr.
+Logan up to my study, and there he’ll supply us with valuable
+information, I’m sure. He should be able to tell us,
+for instance, who disposed of Carruthers. He has done us
+one service already, in evening our score with the late
+lamented Seamus Donley; now we’ll discover just who sent
+Mr. Logan to us, and why.”</p>
+
+<p>It might be folly to go on pretending he was an Edinburgh
+bank-clerk, Logan thought: Meg had given him
+away. Under the circumstances, and considering the habits
+of Jackman’s gang, naturally Dr. Jackman assumed that
+Logan had disposed of Donley. But what new role could
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span>Logan play? To have lapsed into his American speech
+would have suggested to the quick mind of Jackman that
+this young fellow had been sent to manage the purchase of
+Carnglass. And, having learnt too much about Jackman
+and Company, Logan then would be a candidate for extinction.</p>
+
+<p>He dared not pretend to be an Englishman, for his
+mastery of English accents was not up to it, and Jackman
+would have detected him at once. Their French, too, might
+be better than his own. There seemed to be nothing for it
+but to keep speaking in a genteel Scots, though he might
+expand his vocabulary beyond the usual range of a fictitious
+junior clerk. “Well, Dr. Jackman,” Logan said—he
+made the word almost “weel”—“I confess I do find myself
+in a predicament.”</p>
+
+<p>“Really,” said Jackman, “really now, my dear fellow,
+you needn’t continue to talk as a Lothians counter-jumper
+would. You didn’t ring quite true in that role, but yours
+was a valiant try. You’re a cut or two above that sort of
+thing, eh? I doubt whether you’re a Scot at all. An Englishman,
+possibly? Or even a German? A university man, probably.
+Just walk on the other side of our Mr. Logan, if you
+will be so good, Royall. We shall have Mr. Logan resident
+in Carnglass for some time now: permanently, perhaps,
+depending on his degree of co-operation with us. Among
+the many things about you which puzzle me, Logan, is
+how you contrived to become acquainted with Miss Mary
+MacAskival. We shall have to interrogate the young lady
+on that point, eh, Royall—unless Mr. Logan is so gallant as
+to save us the trouble? I hadn’t guessed that Miss MacAskival
+numbered among her friends any person formidable
+enough to do in Seamus Donley, late I.R.A. Well, up
+to my study, if you don’t mind. On the stair, Mr. Royall,
+pray walk directly behind Mr. Logan, with your gun at
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>the ready. We mustn’t underestimate his talents a second
+time.”</p>
+
+<p>For all the gravity of this situation, Hugh Logan felt
+more confidence in himself than he had known since he
+landed in Carnglass. He had begun to understand matters,
+and to struggle against the tide of events; his ineffectuality
+of an hour ago had given way to action of a sort. And time
+was running out for Jackman. A few more days of silence
+from Carnglass, at most, and someone—the police, or a
+passing ship or plane—would suspect that things were amiss
+in the island, and there would be investigations highly embarrassing
+to Jackman. They would not be so embarrassing,
+however—sobering thought—if Hugh Logan somehow
+should have vanished from Carnglass before any official
+inquiries might be made. It was some comfort to reflect
+that Duncan MacAskival, if no one else, soon would begin
+to wonder where he was; and there was the faint possibility
+that the Glasgow police, desiring him for a witness in the
+affair of Mutto’s Wynd, might commence to look for him.
+Everything, conceivably, would depend upon how the next
+few minutes with Dr. Jackman happened to go.</p>
+
+<p>In the study, Jackman indicated that, as on the first occasion,
+Logan was to sit at the chess-table. “I don’t think
+you’ll be needed, Royall,” Jackman said to that cadaverous
+secretary, “but you might look in within the hour. We have
+a very clever guest here: devilish clever. It’s as well I have
+Donley’s pistol in <i>my</i> pocket now.” Royall hesitated, as if
+to offer some objection; but, at a dark glance from Jackman,
+went out.</p>
+
+<p>Once again Jackman poured sherry for Logan, and set
+out the Table-Men of Askival. “Really, Logan, I think you
+were pulling my leg at our last game of chess, as you were
+in so many other matters. I’ll not accept any handicap in
+this match. It’s rather pleasant to play during a casual discussion
+like ours, don’t you think? We never may have an
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span>opportunity for another match. That depends upon you,
+of course, Logan.” Jackman showed every sign of being in
+good spirits, as if he enjoyed this contest with an able adversary;
+but well below his urbane surface, Logan suspected,
+a gnawing disquietude was at work in Jackman. He knew
+the man much better after Mary’s account of him.</p>
+
+<p>As for Logan, he made his first move in the match with
+seeming indifference, smiling at Jackman. The only thing
+that could suffice to save him, Logan felt, was to dismay
+Jackman by a show of complacency and mysterious assurance.
+He had this sole advantage, that Jackman had not
+the faintest glimmer as to who Logan really was. “Oh, no,
+sir,” he said to Jackman, still with his assumed Scottish
+burr, “I fancy that the question of our future encounters,
+Dr. Jackman, already is settled by people from beyond
+Carnglass.”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman scowled. “I told you you needn’t play at little
+games with me, Logan, or whatever your name is. It’s
+pointless now for you to talk like a smarmy bank-clerk that
+never existed. Why not out with it all? Who are you?” He
+advanced a rook.</p>
+
+<p>“That, Dr. Jackman, you’ll learn in the fullness of time.
+Lest you grow rash, let me remind you of one thing: you
+may be sure that I’d not have come to Carnglass, knowing
+you and your men were here, without having taken precautions.
+There are a dozen people who know precisely
+where I am, and why, and who will come looking for me
+if I don’t return when I ought.” He let that observation
+sink in as he meditated his next move. He wished there
+were any truth in it; but Jackman could not know its
+hollowness.</p>
+
+<p>“As for that, Logan”—here Jackman castled—“it would
+be entirely possible for you to be lost, accidentally, in these
+wild waters. No witnesses would swear to your having met
+with any harm in quiet old Carnglass. Not one. You might,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>for instance, have gone mackerel-fishing in a small boat
+with Lagg and Donley; and the three of you might have
+been caught in a squall—there are mishaps enough in these
+waters—and drowned; and two of the bodies might have
+been recovered, Donley’s and yours. A death by drowning
+is quite natural. A quarter of a mile off the western shore
+of Carnglass is a ragged reef that would offer a wholly convincing
+explanation.”</p>
+
+<p>Logan extricated a bishop from a tight corner. “But suppose,
+Dr. Jackman, that my friends ashore are not the sort
+to be satisfied by the formalities of a coroner’s jury, or,
+indeed, by Scottish courts of law? Suppose they might hold
+you privately accountable, and presume you guilty until
+proved innocent?”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman stared at him. “Logan, I put it to you bluntly
+now. Royall was sounding you out last night, of course,
+with his bits from Burns, and our other signals. You evaded
+him. Now tell me out and out, for I’ve no time to waste:
+are you one of us? If you are, why cannot you say so and
+have done with it, and transmit your instructions to me, if
+you’ve any to give? Perhaps you’re from London; perhaps
+from Paris; perhaps from further East. I’ve been expecting
+some such inquiry, of course. Why this cat-and-mouse
+rubbish, if you are one of us?”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman’s nerves were wearing thin. To assume the new
+role of a member of Jackman’s conspiratorial circle would
+be much the safest dodge for him just now, of course—if
+only Logan knew how to play it. But, lacking knowledge
+of the ring, all he could undertake was to cast out dark
+hints from time to time. “Why, I’ll tell you merely this,
+Dr. Jackman: I am not authorized to make any regular
+communication to you until certain events have taken
+place, and until a certain time has elapsed. Until then,
+consider me simply as your casual guest.” He took a rook
+of Jackman’s.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span>“You <i>are</i> a cool chap, Logan. I needn’t tell you I have
+ways of extracting a statement from you. I know all the
+ways, Logan.”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course you know them. But suppose I am the sort of
+person I may be: if you did me any hurt, it might be awkward
+for you afterward, eh? I have a long memory, Jackman.”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman bit his lip, and lost another pawn. “There are
+other ways of getting round you, Logan. Have you ever
+heard a lady scream? A full-throated scream, from exquisite
+agony, I mean. It’s rather distressing for a gentleman who
+happens to like the lady in question. And it is the ladies,
+the gently-bred, soft-skinned ladies, who scream loudest,
+Logan, and talk soonest and most. Imagine a young lady
+accustomed all her life to deference, who hadn’t had a hand
+laid upon her in anger since she was a naughty small child;
+and then think of her, to her surprise and chagrin, abruptly
+treated to the worst that the human body can stand. How
+she would scream, Logan, and babble all she knew, and beg
+to be let off; and you would have the interesting experience
+of watching the process, though unable to intervene. Suppose
+Miss Mary MacAskival were the young lady? I’m sure
+she could tell us a great deal about you.” Jackman’s marvellous
+eyes glinted. “Torment is the great leveller, Logan:
+in torment, the colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady are sisters
+under the skin. There are no class distinctions in agony;
+our Miss MacAskival would behave like the lowest trull
+from Piccadilly, except that she would scream louder and
+talk sooner.”</p>
+
+<p>It required a considerable effort, but Logan kept a smiling
+countenance. If he protested, or showed any sign of
+weakness, Jackman would take precisely this course; he was
+being sounded. Indifference on his part, just now, was the
+chief hope for Mary.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, well, Dr. Jackman, you and I are playing for higher
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span>stakes than a slip of a girl, aren’t we? If you must, you
+must; but I may as well tell you that you’d be wasting the
+time of both of us. Miss MacAskival knows only just what
+I found necessary to tell her, which is precious little. As for
+my being racked vicariously by her discomforts—why, you
+and I got past that a good time ago, didn’t we, Jackman?
+‘O had ye been where I ha’ been, and seen wha’ I ha’
+seen....’ When fellows like us have supped long on horrors,
+another squeal or two doesn’t much matter. Besides,
+I doubt whether you have much taste for twisting ladies’
+arms, Jackman. I know you did your share of the disagreeable
+business, that very sort of business, in Barcelona and
+Bucharest—oh, I know all about you, Jackman”—here
+Jackman grimaced, taken aback—“but really, though you
+make such operations sound jolly, they aren’t very good
+fun, are they, now? One never quite grows accustomed to
+them; they stick in the craw; and what’s worse, they stick
+at the back of the brain, don’t they? Even our friend
+Royall, I suspect, doesn’t relish that business as he should.”</p>
+
+<p>“Even so, Logan, I wouldn’t have to turn my own hands
+to the work, you know. Those strapping fellows downstairs
+would jump at the chance. They’ve been somewhat inhibited
+from their accustomed earthy pleasures here in
+Carnglass, poor chaps, and some haven’t had their way with
+a woman for months. Your recent little <i>contretemps</i> with
+Anderson, for instance—I’m certain Anderson would perform
+the task with enthusiasm. They’re a trifle coarse-fibred,
+my men, and to apply the <i>peine fort et dure</i> to a
+young lady would be quite their cup of tea.”</p>
+
+<p>“No doubt, no doubt, old chap.” Here Logan took a
+knight from Jackman. “I have limitless confidence in their
+aptitude for such work, if for no other. But the powers
+that be still would tend to hold you personally responsible,
+wouldn’t they, now? And suppose the interrogation should
+all be in vain—why, however could you explain? Nothing
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span>does a diligent man’s reputation more serious damage than
+an unauthorized and unnecessary atrocity. <i>You</i> ought to
+know that by this time, Jackman.”</p>
+
+<p>“The things I did, others told me to do, Logan.” Jackman’s
+lips worked. He lost another pawn.</p>
+
+<p>“Quite. But you went rather beyond specific instructions,
+didn’t you? I don’t advise you to exceed instructions
+here in Carnglass.”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman ran a hand lightly across his forehead, distractedly
+touching the little round soft patch in the middle
+with a forefinger. He ventured out a rook too far, and lost
+it to Logan. Then he looked, silent, into Logan’s eyes. The
+gaze of those great glowing pupils of Jackman’s was hard
+to bear. Into Logan’s mind came the sentence, “And if
+thy light be darkness, how great shall be that darkness.”
+It was just possible that he might prove a match of Edmund
+Jackman now, though the odds were against him. The
+man’s brain must be damaged, and under Jackman’s outward
+imperiousness, Logan suspected, vacillation was
+gnawing away. Logan thought also that had he encountered
+Jackman at the height of the man’s powers, Mary would
+have had a sorry knight-errant. But now the merciless
+energy and talent which had been Jackman’s were flickering
+in the socket, like enough, and Logan had to deal only
+with the remnant of a bad man. In Jackman’s ears sounded
+the wings of the Furies, and his mind sank further into
+doubt and dread. Or so Logan surmised, looking into those
+splendid, troubling eyes. It was just barely conceivable that
+Logan might defeat this failing master of deceit.</p>
+
+<p>Logan started, and shook his head to rouse his consciousness.
+Had Jackman been attempting to mesmerize him?
+If so, the attempted paralysis of will had not succeeded,
+what with Logan’s own mind being full of plots and stratagems.
+Yet Jackman might have come near successful hypnosis;
+Logan had a feeling that the man had been asking
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span>him questions, in a low, almost friendly voice, to which
+Logan had given no answers as yet.</p>
+
+<p>Just now Jackman was saying, ever so softly, “Who <i>are</i>
+your friends outside the Old House, out there in the wet
+and the dark?”</p>
+
+<p>“Friends?” Logan spoke shrilly, alarmed at his own
+near-slip into reverie or trance. “Friends? Whose friends?
+If anyone’s outside, they’re no people of mine.” Logan
+regretted this admission as soon as he had made it; it
+would have done no harm to keep Jackman wondering
+whether he had an accomplice or two hidden in the
+bracken. Indeed, perhaps Jackman had begun to extract
+the truth from him by hypnosis, and Logan had escaped
+from the domination of those black eyes only in the nick
+of time.</p>
+
+<p>But Jackman shook his head slowly, in disbelief; and his
+eyes went to the window of that room high in the tower,
+almost as if he feared to see some face pressed against the
+pane, far above the living rock of the Old House’s foundation.
+It was borne in upon Logan that Jackman’s unease
+was greater than his own fears.</p>
+
+<p>Jackman licked his thin lips. “Why, Logan, who do
+you expect me to believe they are?” If the mystery back
+there behind the bracken had shaken Jackman this much,
+the panic must be worse among the men below stairs, with
+Rab’s hysteria to work upon them. “If they were police or
+intelligence people,” Jackman said, almost as if he expected
+to be overheard by some presence in that dusky painted
+chamber, “they would have swooped upon us long ago;
+they wouldn’t skulk about, picking off first one man and
+then another.”</p>
+
+<p>“Rab told you that it was Tam Lagg: old Lagg, Dr.
+Jackman, that you sent over the cliffs a thousand feet down
+to the rocks and the sea, while he screamed of his wife and
+his bairns.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span>Jackman looked at Logan astonished. “You, Logan—were
+you watching then? But no, you’ll have had that from
+Donley, before you finished with him. Lagg? What are you
+talking of? I saw him strike a crag half way down, and
+bounce off like a ball, and then fall to the sea. Such a thing
+doesn’t walk again.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not alive,” Logan replied. “No, not alive.” Jackman’s
+eyes dilated. Yes, he could sound this note, Logan decided:
+the black beast was upon Jackman’s shoulders, and the
+conjuror was bewitched. If ever a man was haunted, it was
+Jackman, stalked by Spanish victims and Roumanian spectres,
+and now with the wraith of Lagg at his heels. “See
+here, Jackman: you raise sham bogles to frighten old
+women, and you laugh up your sleeve. But when you play
+with things from the abyss, you run risks. In this dead
+island of Carnglass, all round us things are ready to stir, if
+they’re called. I felt them in Dalcruach clachan. In Carnglass
+the dead are more than the living. And why shouldn’t
+Tam Lagg rise? You gave him the death that he feared
+most to die. If ever you set a spirit to walk the night, it was
+when you tossed that screaming man from the headland at
+the back of St. Merin’s Chapel.”</p>
+
+<p>As Logan spoke, a nasty change came over Jackman. His
+face went a sick white, and his eyes closed, and he slumped
+in his chair. The horror must be on him. His breath came
+hard. Logan began to think of closing with him as he sat
+motionless across the table. But after a moment, Jackman
+gasped, blinked, and fumbled for the pistol in his pocket;
+he drew the gun and laid it before him, beside the chessboard.</p>
+
+<p>“Then you feel it, too,” Jackman muttered, very low.
+“All about us, eh? Oh, this is a damned house, a place of
+dreams, horrid dreams. Listen: last night I walked the passages,
+for I didn’t dare to sleep, until I was worn out. In
+the end, I lay on my bed, not closing my eyes. And then
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>it was not a bed, but a long, close tunnel or cave, and I was
+stumbling along it. Away at the end, I could see something
+standing. And it came to me that I myself was standing
+there, even though I walked toward the thing. The Edmund
+Jackman at the end of the cave was the Edmund
+Jackman that I might have been, if—if I had taken another
+turn at the beginning. And as I came up to myself, wanting
+to see the face, and the beauty of what I might have been,
+the thing turned, and looked at me. Its face was the face
+of a goat. Ah, the slit eyes! And I became one with it, and
+woke, and the horror still was on me.”</p>
+
+<p>Infected by the man’s loathing of himself, and his fright,
+Logan also lowered his voice to a whisper. “Would you
+rather have died in the cave than have become one with
+the goat?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said Jackman, “yes. It would be better to lie dead,
+dead like Lagg. I thought then of the gelignite, and I think
+of it every day and every night.” At this, Jackman shuddered,
+seemed to collect his wits, scowled at Logan, and
+glanced dully at the Table-Men of Askival on the board
+before him.</p>
+
+<p>“Your move,” Logan reminded him. Edmund Jackman
+moved almost at random. “So!” Logan shifted his queen.
+“Checkmate, Dr. Jackman.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hell!” cried Jackman, reaching out his hand as if to
+sweep the pieces to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>“Easy!” Logan said, intercepting Jackman’s hand with
+his own. “There’s but this one set in the world, you know.”</p>
+
+<p>Once more their eyes met in a long, strange stare; then
+Jackman, to Logan’s surprise, glanced down at the table.
+“Logan, or whatever you are,” he said, almost pleadingly,
+“I don’t know whether you can understand me. You’re a
+Party intellectual, I think, and the Party believes it knows
+all things. Yet in some matters the Party is blind. Just now
+I said ‘Hell.’ In Carnglass, I have learned that Hell is real.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>That’s heresy in the Party; but I have looked on Hell.
+There is no Heaven, but there is Hell.”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman’s eyes were vacant now; he seemed to have forgotten
+to whom he spoke. “Hell endures,” he went on. “I
+have been in Hell always. This Carnglass is Hell. Don’t
+you know you were here in Carnglass before, infinitely
+long ago? We fought here then—and I lost. In Carnglass
+there is no time. Eternity is real here, and change is the
+delusion. I know this in the nights, when I walk the corridors.
+It is only in the day I can pretend that I am alive, or
+that what things I do can possibly save me from the torment.
+In the nights it is Hell that is real, and the Party is
+a sham. Do you understand that? And I know that you
+came here to send me to the torment, as you did before.”</p>
+
+<p>Many times, Logan had heard the phrase “possessed of
+a devil.” But not until this moment, as he sat opposite
+Jackman with the chessmen between them, had he perceived
+the full and dreadful meaning of the words. The
+dark powers had claimed Edmund Jackman long since,
+and what sat opposite him was only the husk of a human
+being. Even the husk was crumbling now. Yet out of that
+desiccated scrap of mortality, dry and empty as the armor of
+last summer’s locust, there echoed now and again cries of
+anguish, the vain contrition of the damned. Whatever traditionary
+spectres might throng round the Old House of
+Fear, here right before Logan sat the ghost of what once
+might have been a vessel for honor.</p>
+
+<p>Again Jackman’s eyes had closed, and the man or devil
+did not stir in the chair. What visions came and went behind
+those fallen eyelids, Logan preferred not to think.
+Jackman had drifted somewhere beyond this world of
+sense, for the moment. In the middle of that pallid forehead,
+the nasty round spot, the Third Eye, seemed to pulsate
+faintly, as if keeping night watch upon Logan.</p>
+
+<p>Hugh Logan fought clear of the contagion of madness.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span>Minutes, precious minutes, were slipping away. By a heap
+of chessmen lay the little pistol. Should he make a try for
+it? Or was this some sort of trap that Jackman had set? No,
+the damned man’s trance was genuine. If he chose, Logan
+could leap up, snatch the pistol, and make for the stairs.
+But that gang of murderers was below. And where might
+Mary and he run to? Well, let him get his hands on a
+rifle, and he might hold the old tower against them for a
+time. It might be possible to keep Jackman a hostage. The
+scheme was fantastic, but the only probable alternative
+was torture and death for Mary MacAskival and himself.
+Rising silent from his chair, Logan stretched out a hand
+toward the gun.</p>
+
+<p>“As you were!” It was Royall’s harsh voice, at Logan’s
+back. A revolver-muzzle pressed into his spine. Royall’s
+long, almost skeletal arm reached past him and snatched
+up the little pistol by the chessmen. “Over to the wall,”
+Royall said, “and stand there till I tell you to turn round.
+I’ve been behind the screen these ten minutes past, Logan.”</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">11</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>It would have been a lunatic try anyhow, Logan thought
+as he faced the wall. Behind him, Royall was ministering
+to Dr. Jackman, but Logan felt sure that if he swung
+round, Royall would not miss.</p>
+
+<p>“Here, a little brandy,” Royall was saying, rather in the
+tone of a nurse. “Come round now, Dr. Jackman. It’s no
+time for fancies.” There was a sound as if Royall were
+gently slapping Jackman’s cheeks. “That’s it, sir: are you
+quite awake now, Dr. Jackman?”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman’s voice came choked and faint, but grew in
+power after the first few words. “Askival,” Jackman was
+saying. “Askival—where is he? And Lagg?”</p>
+
+<p>“Take hold of yourself, Dr. Jackman. We’ve this fellow
+Logan to deal with. Very well, Logan: come over here and
+sit down.”</p>
+
+<p>For the present, Royall had assumed command. With
+his revolver he gestured toward the chair in which Logan
+had sat during the chess-match, and Logan took it without
+protest. Royall continued to stand. On the other side of
+the table, Jackman seemed in possession of his faculties
+again.</p>
+
+<p>“We’d best search this man,” Royall said. He slipped a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>hand inside Logan’s jacket, still standing at Logan’s back,
+and found his wallet. Logan did not move: Jackman was
+watching him keenly, his hand on the pistol. They would
+find no identification in the wallet, for Logan had put his
+passport and anything else with his name on it into the
+knapsack.</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir, there’s nothing with a name, worse luck,”
+Royall murmured. “Stand up and take off your jacket,
+Logan.” Logan did as he was told. In a moment Royall
+thrust the jacket back to him. “And no labels, Dr. Jackman.
+The man must be an old hand at his game.”</p>
+
+<p>“Tompkins searched his room this morning?” Jackman
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; and he found nothing but a razor and the like.
+No papers—and not even the canvas sack this man brought
+with him. I suppose he burnt it in the fireplace, or else
+flung it out of the window and down the cliff to the sea.”</p>
+
+<p>“Have a man look along the rocks at low tide,” Jackman
+said. “Yes, our friend Logan undoubtedly has had experience
+as an agent of some sort.”</p>
+
+<p>“You needn’t bother to have a man risk his bones on
+those weedy ledges,” Logan told them. “I burnt the sack
+on the coals, last night.” He trusted that Mary had tucked
+away the pack in some really secure hidie-hole.</p>
+
+<p>“For your circumstances, Logan,” Royall muttered,
+“you seem unreasonably cheerful. I shouldn’t care to find
+myself in your present situation.” Royall ran his hands
+carefully along Logan’s trousers and into his pockets. “No,
+Dr. Jackman—no knife, and no papers stitched into the
+linings.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why,” said Logan, “I suppose a man might as well
+laugh as cry. And then, don’t you know, it’s not I who
+need to fash—as we true-born Scots say. It’s you gentlemen
+who will have to make your peace, if you can, with the men
+that will be here all too soon for your comfort.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span>“Sit down again, Logan,” Royall ordered. “You needn’t
+sing that tune for us. If you had any people at your back,
+we’d have seen them before this.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh?” Logan answered, amicably. “And who do you suppose
+took Carruthers? Donley was dead hours before you
+missed Carruthers, remember.”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman and Royall stared at each other, silent. In that
+moment, Logan almost felt a touch of pity for them. Both
+must have been reared and educated well enough—very
+well, indeed. What flaws of character or intellectual false
+turnings had brought them into this ruthless business,
+he could not tell. They might have commenced, like others,
+full of humanitarian sentimentality. And then, perhaps,
+demon ideology, with its imperatives and its inexorable
+dogmas, its sobersided caricature of religion, had swept
+them on to horrors. Ideological fanaticism had made of
+Jackman the goat-man, mastered by lust: but not the lust
+for women’s bodies. Jackman’s was the <i>libido dominandi</i>,
+the tormented seeking after power that ceases not until
+death. And in the flame of that lust for power, Jackman
+and Royall would be burnt up, today or next week or next
+month: they were at the end of their devil’s bargain, and
+the fiend would claim his own.</p>
+
+<p>Now, in this oppressive silent moment, the conviction
+came to Logan that these two artists of disintegration were
+more frightened than he. He felt surprised to find himself
+thinking clearly enough, almost ruminating, in this tension
+that made electric the ancient room with the painted
+ceiling. Because frightened, Jackman and Royall were the
+more dangerous; but also their brains were stagnant with
+dread.</p>
+
+<p>Fear, it crossed Logan’s mind, is the normal condition
+of man, after all. Quiet ages and safe lands are the rare
+exceptions in history. Nowadays the tides of disorder were
+gnawing at whatever security and justice still stood in the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span>world, quite as the swell round Carnglass sought to bring
+down that heap of gray stones to the mindless anonymity of
+the ocean. With growing speed, the brooding spectre of
+terror, almost palpable in Carnglass, was enveloping the
+world. This island was the microcosm of modern existence.</p>
+
+<p>And here in the haunted stronghold of the Old House of
+Fear, Jackman and Royall and their gang found themselves
+caught in their own snare. Even the dull criminals below
+stairs, huddled tipsily by the kitchen fire, were unmanned
+by a dim sense of catastrophe, caught up in a horror of the
+empty island, where mist and silence seemed to have made
+away with time, so that Glasgow and Liverpool and London
+were fancies out of an illusory past.</p>
+
+<p>Jackman himself, with his distraught imagination, his
+ruined talents once near to genius, fancied himself snared
+here by destiny, condemned to give reality to a myth. And
+was he wrong? In the Old House, Logan doubted where
+the realm of spirit ended and the realm of flesh began.</p>
+
+<p>In this dead island, all Jackman’s cleverness lay frustrated,
+and the strange chance or power that had brought
+Logan to Carnglass on this day seemed to fill the close air
+in that forgotten tower-room. For Edmund Jackman,
+Logan might be something not quite canny, at once a man
+and an occult agent. Even for Royall, Hugh Logan must
+seem a retributive figure, from Party or police, mercilessly
+calm with the knowledge that others were not far behind
+him.</p>
+
+<p>For all their effort to behave as if they still were masters
+of the island, a tautness almost hysterical had crept into
+Jackman and Royall, and their voices were strained. What
+for years they had dealt out to others, now waited for them;
+and they had forgotten the meaning of mercy. There was
+no justice to which they could appeal. By fear they had
+lived; and now the fear which they and their sort had
+carried throughout the world was claiming them also. Having
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span>murdered order, these two at last were cast into the
+outer darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Jackman was speaking. Had something like a quaver
+crept into that urbane and sardonic voice? “Well, Royall,”
+he was saying, “what will we do with this Logan?”</p>
+
+<p>Royall shifted uncertainly behind Logan’s chair. This
+man, it occurred to Logan, saw the growing madness in his
+leader, and yet was loyal—his last link with old-fangled
+human affections.</p>
+
+<p>“Dr. Jackman,” Royall said, “I have a theory concerning
+our friend Logan. I believe he’s one of Vlanarov’s people.”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman now spoke with his old decisiveness, as if another
+spirit had entered into that sinister body, and as if
+what had happened during the preceding half hour had
+quite washed away from his memory. “Possibly,” Jackman
+commented. “Quite possibly. The thought had crossed my
+mind, too. If he should be, perhaps we can arrive at satisfactory
+terms. Well, Logan?”</p>
+
+<p>Logan devoutly wished, at this juncture, that he had
+studied more attentively the recent history of Eastern
+Europe. If he had fought in Europe, rather than in the
+Pacific, that might have been of some help; or had he been
+in intelligence, rather than the infantry. As it was, the
+name Vlanarov told him a little, but not enough. If
+memory served him aright, Vlanarov was such a one as
+Jackman, but a much bigger fish. Logan rather thought
+that Vlanarov had been at Bela Kun’s side in Hungary,
+a generation ago, and in Madrid during the Civil War, and
+after 1945 a terror in Poland. Through all the vicissitudes
+of Party feuds and all the eddies of ideology in the buffer
+states, the shadowy but formidable figure of Vlanarov had
+glided scatheless. No one ever saw a photograph of the man.
+It had been his peculiar talent to anticipate the triumph
+of particular factions within the Soviet states, and to shift
+masterfully in precisely the proper moment from one interpretation
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span>of Marxist doctrine to the corrected version.
+Whenever a vanquished clique fell to its ruin, Vlanarov
+sorted through the wreck for such survivors as might still
+do mischief to the new Party orthodoxy, and clipped their
+claws and their wings for them—or something worse. Certain
+Trotskyites called Vlanarov “The Vulture.”</p>
+
+<p>This much, Logan recalled. And he could see that conceivably
+the pose of being one of Vlanarov’s people, at
+watch upon Jackman’s schemes, might save his neck. But
+the great difficulty was that he knew far too little of Party
+intrigues to play this role to the full. For that matter, he
+was not precisely sure that Vlanarov still was alive: Royall
+might be setting a trap for him.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” Royall was saying, “I fancy that he’s a Vlanarovite,
+sent over by Bruhl from Brussels, to report on our
+work. Only one of that sort could have made away with
+Donley so efficiently.”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman, now tense and erect in his chair, nodded.
+“Logan,” he said, “if you come from Bruhl or Vlanarov,
+with instructions for us or perhaps for a survey—why, tell
+me now. After all, you can’t expect to remain anonymous
+much longer, because tomorrow or next day I should receive
+word from Glasgow, and perhaps from Paris.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, Jackman, I don’t think you will.” Logan had resolved
+to sound as much like a Vlanarovite as possible,
+without being expected to furnish proof positive. “You’ve
+contrived to get your boats burnt for you by a stupid old
+Irishman. You’ve had part of your wireless stolen”—Jackman
+started at this—“and you’ve no way of sending word
+to shore. And you saddled yourself with the clumsiest set
+of agents that ever I set eyes upon. Gare, that drunken incompetent;
+Dowie, who’s fit only for filching sixpences
+from slum boys; Jock Anderson, all swagger and no nerve.
+We gobbled the lot of them.” Logan opened his right hand
+wide and closed it hard, as if crushing something within.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span>“They’re awa’ doon the water, Jackman. An old hand like
+you! One would think you had turned to drink. But you’ve
+turned to old wives’ tales, instead.”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman bit his lip. “Do you mean—do you mean they’ve
+been taken?”</p>
+
+<p>“Liquidated is our word, Dr. Jackman. They were, after
+all, depreciated assets. And were I you, Jackman, I’d look
+sharp. What have you accomplished here in Carnglass?
+The rags and tags of information you’ve collected in foraging
+round the islands are next to worthless. We have better
+ways of mapping those missile sites. And playing with
+gelignite, like a boy with firecrackers! You’d never get the
+stuff past the guards at the installations, if you seriously
+tried: these hangdog fellows you’ve collected here in Carnglass
+haven’t the heart or the mind for it. You drove out
+your only experienced man, Donley, so that he had to be
+liquidated for fear he’d talk. Unauthorized enthusiasm!
+It will be your ruin, Jackman.”</p>
+
+<p>“But after all,” Royall put in eagerly, “Bruhl himself
+gave his consent to this project.”</p>
+
+<p>“Tentative consent is one thing,” Logan said; “approval
+of blunders in operation is another.”</p>
+
+<p>Jackman ran his fingers across his forehead in his old
+gesture of incertitude. “Logan,” he said, “I believe you
+really are from Vlanarov’s people. You’re a Party intellectual:
+you’ve the look and tone of it. In short, you’re
+a man we can talk with. You must know as well as we do
+what has gone wrong with this scheme. The people in the
+Continent want action from me, but they’ll take no risks
+nor spend any money. For that matter, they’ll give me no
+men. I am expected to extort the funds from old women,
+conscript a set of criminals and hold them together by
+blackmail and intimidation, and pay the penalty by myself,
+with my own neck, if everything falls in pieces.</p>
+
+<p>“For years those people have used Royall and me in this
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span>way. Edmund Jackman, who ought to be forming policy
+at the upper levels, set to leading a gang of banditti at the
+back of beyond! It’s enough to craze a man. As one intellectual
+to another, do you see any justice in that?
+Bureaucracy on the one hand, fanatic ideological rigidity
+on the other; and the best minds in the Party, like yours
+and mine, fallen between the stools. In my situation, what
+would you have done differently?” He was almost wheedling.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m not authorized to offer any opinion on that subject,
+as yet,” Logan said, with what he hoped was an enigmatic
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps I had better make it clear, Logan,” Royall
+put in, “that Dr. Jackman’s association with Beria arose
+solely from necessity, and from his obedience to Party
+discipline. We regret as much as anyone does what happened
+to Vlanarov’s father.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you have a cigarette?” said Logan. “I suppose lunch
+will be ready soon.”</p>
+
+<p>“Logan,” Jackman demanded, intensely, “are you here
+to supplant me? If you are, why this shilly-shallying? Can’t
+you have the decency to present your instructions?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, I’m in no position as yet to give definite orders,
+Jackman. The decisions must be yours; I decline any
+responsibility. But this I will suggest: disarm your men,
+lock up the guns, and give me the keys to the gunroom and
+the cellars where you keep the gelignite. Send all the men
+down to the New House except Tompkins and Royall.
+Light a beacon, or send up flares, and put Carnglass in communication
+with the mainland through ordinary channels.
+Leave me in charge of the Old House. Then wait the turn
+of events. If you do this, I’ll put in my good word for you
+with my superiors.”</p>
+
+<p>This was spreading it perilously thick, Logan thought,
+but one might as well be taken for a tiger as for an alley-cat.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span>Jackman sucked in his breath. “You ask too much,
+Logan, whoever or whatever you are. Is this some plan to
+make Royall and me the scapegoats? To hand us over to
+the police or intelligence, possibly, by way of covering
+some one else’s blunders? I’ve been treated that way before,
+Logan, and I’ll not endure it again. Sooner than that—sooner
+than the gaol or the gallows—I’d walk into the cellars
+and detonate the gelignite. I’d rather blow Carnglass into
+pebbles than be the dupe once more.”</p>
+
+<p>“You asked for suggestions, Jackman. I told you I’d
+assume no responsibilities.” Logan had not dared to hope
+that Jackman actually would fall into his impromptu snare;
+but at least it served to bewilder Jackman and Royall.</p>
+
+<p>“And if we did disarm the men,” Royall volunteered,
+“who would keep off your friends outside? The ones that
+made away with Carruthers, and sent Rab mad? What’s
+your scheme, Logan—to liquidate all of us in Carnglass?
+To send us to join Gare and Dowie and Jock Anderson and
+Donley? To make sure that no one here ever has an opportunity
+to furnish evidence to the government?”</p>
+
+<p>Inadvertently, he might have carried the game too far,
+Logan saw: he might get himself drowned for a commissar
+instead of a police-agent.</p>
+
+<p>“Damn it,” Jackman almost shouted, the patch in the
+middle of his forehead twitching, “are you really from
+Vlanarov? Do you have another name?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll tell you when there’s need for it,” was all Logan
+answered him. For Jackman was losing control of himself,
+and it was conceivable that he might shoot Logan where
+he stood.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, now, Dr. Jackman,” Royall murmured, “if he
+<i>is</i> from Vlanarov, we’d best not....”</p>
+
+<p>“No!” Jackman cried, his air of power returning to him.
+“No, you’ll tell me soon enough. If you’re sent by that
+mutual-admiration circle in the Continent, I’ll have that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span>news out of you, and make you pay for it. And if you’re
+something worse, I’ll twist that truth from you. I know
+your medicine, Logan. You’re going into the Whiskey
+Bottle; there’s no man who can endure that place long.
+You’ll talk with me, and thank me for the chance.”</p>
+
+<p>“Dr. Jackman, I really do think ...” Royall began, uneasily.
+But Jackman cut him off.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Royall, get Anderson and Caggia. We’ll put our
+friend Logan away below stairs. The responsibility is mine.
+And while I’m at the Whiskey Bottle, you make the rounds
+of the house, Royall, and make sure all the men have ammunition
+enough.”</p>
+
+<p>It never would do to let Jackman see any sign of weakness
+in him, for the man subsisted on others’ dread, and was
+most merciless, Logan guessed, when they were most piteous.
+Deliberately Logan gathered up the Table-Men and
+set them in their casket. “I thought you had a taste for
+sherry, Jackman,” he said, “but you seem to have whiskey
+in mind for me.” Jackman answered nothing. Then Anderson
+and Ferd entered. Anderson’s jaw was bound up in a
+bloody handkerchief, and the man looked murder at
+Logan.</p>
+
+<p>In silence, Jackman and Anderson and Ferd Caggia took
+Logan down the worn stair in the thickness of the wall.
+They took him to the ground floor of the old tower, where
+first he had met Mary MacAskival only yesterday about
+this hour, though it seemed an age ago. And they shoved
+him toward one corner of that great vaulted empty room.
+In that corner, flush with the flagstones, a small stair
+twisted downward, below the level of the rock on which the
+Old House stood. Anderson thrust him forward with a
+curse, so that Logan staggered down the short flight, the
+three men behind him.</p>
+
+<p>The place below was wholly dark. Caggia carried a petrol
+lantern, and he lit it and swung it round. This crypt, hollowed
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span>from the rock, apparently contained nothing but
+what looked like a broken windlass in a far corner, and
+what seemed to be a coil or heap of rope in a near corner.
+And in the middle of the floor was a circular lid or cover
+of stone, with an iron ring set into it. Caggia and Anderson
+commenced to drag back this lid.</p>
+
+<p>This being, perhaps, his last appearance above ground,
+Logan thought he ought to improve the shining hour. “I
+do hope, Anderson,” he said, “that your jaw doesn’t pain
+you.” Anderson responded with an obscenity. “I am acquainted
+with your brother Jock in the Gallowgate,”
+Logan went on. “A lively man, Jock. He kicked me in the
+jaw not long ago.”</p>
+
+<p>“Gude for Jock,” growled Anderson. “I’ll soon gie ye
+anither.”</p>
+
+<p>“But we caught him, Davie Anderson,” Logan continued,
+“and put him where he’ll kick no more. We caught
+Jim Dowie and his wife Jeanie, too, and the others. And
+now all the world knows of the criminals of Carnglass.”</p>
+
+<p>“Enough of that, Logan,” Jackman put in. Anderson
+and Ferd were standing by the open mouth of a pit or
+cistern, staring attentively at Logan. Jackman pressed the
+muzzle of the little pistol into Logan’s back and urged him
+toward the gulf. This must be the pit, for dead herring or
+dead men, described in Balmullo’s account of the Old
+House.</p>
+
+<p>“Dr. Jackman,” Logan said in some haste, “I do trust
+that when, tomorrow or the next day, you decide in despair
+to blow up the Old House, yourself, and everyone round
+about, you will allow these two fine fellows to join me in
+this well of yours. It will probably be the safest place for
+some miles round. I doubt whether Anderson and Caggia
+are so ready to die as you are.”</p>
+
+<p>Ferd Caggia’s perpetual grin diminished. He glanced
+appraisingly at Dr. Jackman. “Ferd,” said Logan, “presumably
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span>you will be brought to trial for treason, at the
+least, even if you escape Dr. Jackman’s gelignite. They
+tell me that you are an excellent shot. If I were you, I
+should endeavor to persuade Dr. Jackman to remain a
+comfortable distance from the crypt where he keeps the
+explosives.”</p>
+
+<p>“Logan,” Jackman muttered in his ear, “do you want
+a bullet in your spine?”</p>
+
+<p>“By no means, Dr. Jackman. And try not to forget that
+there will be people asking after me, very soon.” Would
+they try to throw him into the pit that stood open right
+by his feet?</p>
+
+<p>“Kneel down,” Jackman told him, “and you may have
+a glimpse of the Whiskey Bottle. Do you know the Mamertine
+prison in Rome? This is very like, Logan, but deeper.”</p>
+
+<p>Caggia had tied a long cord to the lantern, which now
+he lowered into the hole and swung in a circle, slowly, so
+as to show the interior of the place. Kneeling reluctantly,
+Logan made out an immense dry depth. The pit was shaped
+roughly like a bottle, narrow at the mouth and gradually
+widening, and going down, down. It was irregular, however,
+with bulges and depressions here and there in its sides,
+as if more the work of nature than of man. From the
+mouth, one could not get a clear view of the whole interior.
+The lantern sank lower and lower into the abyss, and still
+Logan could not perceive the bottom; then Caggia hauled
+it up. In this place, according to Balmullo’s history of Carnglass,
+had been found the deformed skeleton that the crofters
+had called the Firgower. If ever the pit had been filled
+with salt herring, it must have enabled the Old House
+to withstand a siege of months, supposing there was fresh
+water enough to drink.</p>
+
+<p>Logan stood firm upon the lip of the Whiskey Bottle.
+Nothing but audacity, he felt, would discourage Jackman
+from indulging in a new atrocity at this moment. “Look
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>sharp that our friend Dr. Jackman doesn’t put you, too,
+down this well, Caggia,” he remarked. “It must tell on one’s
+nerves to have a lunatic bent upon self-destruction for an
+employer.”</p>
+
+<p>“There you’ll stay, Logan, until you feel inclined to talk
+with us,” Jackman said, rolling the words thickly. “If I
+don’t forget you. You’ll not eat or drink until we let you
+out—if we do. I won’t say when we’ll come back to inquire
+after you: it may be hours, or it may be days. A man does
+not stay sane very long in the Whiskey Bottle. If you come
+out in time, there’s no harm done. Scream when you wish
+to come out, and perhaps we will hear you. Better men
+than you have gone down and not come up alive. Down
+with you, now.”</p>
+
+<p>Anderson had dragged from the corner a long rope ladder.
+He made it fast to two iron rings sunk in the floor of
+the crypt, and let the rope fall into the pit. “There you
+go,” said Jackman. “Goodnight to you, Mr. Logan.”</p>
+
+<p>“I think I’ll not go,” Logan told them. They scarcely
+could carry him down the swaying rope ladder.</p>
+
+<p>“In that event,” Jackman remarked—and Anderson sniggered—“we
+would have to pitch you in, and it’s nearly fifty
+feet to the bottom, so you would be broken. Or we would
+have to lower you in at a rope’s end, head first, with risk
+to your skull. I advise you to choose the ladder.”</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing else for it. Logan set his feet and
+hands on the swaying ladder, and began to descend. As he
+went down, the feet of the three men disappeared from
+view, and presently he was in blackness. After what seemed
+eternity, swinging and twisting about on the ropes, he felt
+no rung-slat under his foot, and halted, twirling back and
+forth like a top in space. Did they mean him to fall and
+break his legs or back? “It doesn’t reach,” he called up. The
+echo was melancholy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span>“Jump for it,” Jackman’s voice sounded ever so faintly
+above.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll be damned if I do,” Logan roared back.</p>
+
+<p>“You’ll be damned if you don’t,” called Jackman, “for
+we’ll loose the ladder at this end, and you’ll fall anyhow,
+and there’ll be no way back.”</p>
+
+<p>Waiting was no comfort. Logan relinquished his hold on
+the ladder, expecting his end. But he fell only six or seven
+feet, bruising his back on the jagged stone floor, which was
+quite dry. He could hear the rustle of the ladder being
+hauled up. The light of the lantern glimmered at the top
+of the Bottle, and a head was thrust over the mouth of the
+shaft, silhouetted against the petrol glare.</p>
+
+<p>“Should auld acquaintance be forgot,” Jackman said,
+“shriek when you care for our company.” He laughed.
+Then he said something else, more faintly; but Logan
+thought it was, “Once you put me here, Askival.” There
+came a scraping sound from above, and the lid was dragged
+back over the Bottle’s mouth, cutting off Logan from the
+world. He was shut into the tomb now, as in his dream
+on the second night in Carnglass. As if the stone cover had
+not been coffin-lid enough, an iron door had stood ajar,
+Logan remembered, at the entrance to the crypt, a big key
+in the lock. No doubt they would turn the key. Goodbye,
+Mary MacAskival.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">12</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the Whiskey Bottle, it would not do to brood more than
+a man might help, for that way lay despair: especially when
+one thought of what might be done to Mary MacAskival,
+high above. So Logan busied himself, at first, in creeping
+round the circumference of the Bottle’s floor, feeling everywhere.
+There was nothing to feel but lumpy naked rock,
+everywhere gouged by ancient chisels.</p>
+
+<p>The batter of the circular sides made it impossible for
+him even to think of climbing, fly-like, toward the mouth.
+These pleasures soon were exhausted. His watch had not
+worked well since he splashed ashore in Carnglass, and perhaps
+that was to the good. Already he was hungry and
+thirsty; but this last must be chiefly a psychological oppression,
+as the damp air of Carnglass made it unnecessary for
+a man to drink much water a day.</p>
+
+<p>Although he had been in the place but a quarter of an
+hour, probably, the problem of fresh air began to worry
+Logan. It was silly to think about it so soon, of course: the
+immense cubic capacity of the Bottle would give him oxygen
+enough for a long time, and conceivably enough to
+support life leaked beneath the rude stone at the mouth,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span>anyway. But one thought about such things in the Bottle,
+for lack of aught else to do.</p>
+
+<p>In all that dead island, the Whiskey Bottle was the deadest
+place. Not even an insect could live here; and the place
+was so dry that, perhaps, not even a lichen could cling to
+the sloping walls. One could think only of dead things:
+of the deformed skeleton found on this floor, and the
+presences that drifted through Jackman’s guilty brain. It
+wouldn’t do for a man to think such thoughts: not for a
+man who meant to keep his wits about him. If ever they
+let him out of the Bottle, he would need all the wits and
+all the strength he could muster. The best thing to do, then,
+was to sleep. Luckily, Logan was very tired from the strain
+of the past several days, and from having had so little sleep
+last night, what with his colloquy with Mary MacAskival.
+And sleep never had come hard to him, in the worst of
+times and places. He groped about the rough floor until
+he found a tolerable area upon which to stretch himself,
+and there he lay down, his head on his arm, and soon drifted
+off. Dreams came, hideous dreams; but afterward they were
+all a blur to him. Now and then he tossed and woke imperfectly;
+then, like a sick man, he sank back into the sanctuary
+of the unconscious.</p>
+
+<p>How many hours later it was that a noise woke him, he
+could not say. What could make a noise in the Bottle?
+Nothing living. It was a faint dragging noise. Then high
+overhead, he could perceive the faintest half-moon of light.
+Someone was dragging back the stone lid of the Bottle,
+slowly.</p>
+
+<p>Would Jackman and Royall pull him out and put him
+to more direct torture? If they had tormented the truth
+about him out of Mary MacAskival, the odds were that
+they would put him into the sea, as a man who knew too
+much of them, and whose death might be explained with
+tolerable ease. It might be easier for him to refuse to come
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span>up, and hope that aid might come from the mainland in
+time. They could descend, of course, and tie him, and haul
+him to the top; but that would mean a fight. If they shot
+him, that would be evidence of foul play, supposing his
+body ever were washed up.</p>
+
+<p>Now something scraped and rustled, and barely brushed
+the top of his head: it must be the rope ladder. Reaching
+up, he grasped the thin strip of wood that was the bottom
+rung. Still Jackman, if he were above, said nothing. But
+a light probed downward toward Logan; someone up there
+held an electric torch. He had might as well take this dubious
+chance. Although it had been long since Logan had
+gone in for gymnastics, he had strong arms, and so contrived
+to pull his chin up to the level of the bottom rung, get a
+fresh grip, and bring up his legs. And then he commenced
+the swaying climb toward the Bottle’s mouth.</p>
+
+<p>As he neared the top, the torch dazzled him. Then a
+hand caught his, helping him over the edge to the floor of
+the crypt. No sooner had Logan got to his feet than a pair
+of arms was flung around his neck, and a small body hung
+for a moment upon his, in fright and delight. “They’ve
+broken no bone of you, Hugh?” said Mary MacAskival.
+Before he could reply, she kissed him, and then flashed
+the electric torch the length of his body, as if to be sure
+he were all there. “Don’t speak above a wee whisper,” she
+murmured in his ear, “and come over here, for we must
+be off.” Taking his hand, she led him through the dark
+toward a corner of the crypt.</p>
+
+<p>“One glimpse of you, anyway,” said Hugh. Taking the
+torch, he sent the beam over and behind her. She was barefoot,
+but with a pair of little walking-shoes slung round her
+neck. On her back she had Logan’s own rucksack, looking
+as if it were crammed with things. Her back was to what
+seemed to be the low circular coping of a well, with a derelict
+windlass above it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span>“We daren’t talk now,” the girl said, “for we’ll have but
+a quarter of an hour, at best, before Niven gives the alarm.
+He’s sentry at the garden door on the floor above. I told
+him I was taking you food and water, which you’re not
+supposed to have, and he let me pass, for he knows I am a
+red-haired witch. Jackman will thrash the poor fellow
+within an inch of his life when he finds we’re gone. Niven
+never thought I could get out with you, of course. If he’d
+known that, even I couldn’t have seduced him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Seduced him?”</p>
+
+<p>She chuckled. “Oh, don’t be silly. Has Dr. Jackman
+been telling you more lies about me? I mean, subverted
+his loyalty to Jackman. I gave Niven five pounds and nearly
+a full bottle of rum. All right now, Hugh: take off your
+trousers.”</p>
+
+<p>He was bemused. “Whatever for?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, silly, we’re going down the cistern, and there’s
+water in it, and you might catch your death of cold outside,
+with wet trousers. I think you may keep your shirt on; we
+sha’n’t go so deep, I hope. Here, take the pack, and carry
+it, and stuff your trousers in it. I can kilt up my skirt once
+we’re at the level of the water, but you could hardly slip
+off your trousers in the middle of the shaft. You’d best
+take off your shoes and stockings, and sling them round
+your neck, the way I have, too. You needn’t be shy: I’ll go
+down first, and I’ll point the torch the other way.”</p>
+
+<p>Logan stared into the cistern. In the beam of the torch,
+he could see rusted iron rungs set into the masonry, leading
+downward; but they ended in still water. “If we’re to
+drown, Mary,” he said, “it had might as well be in the sea.”</p>
+
+<p>“What with the gutters of the tower being half clogged,”
+she went on, “the water level down there is very low nowadays—twelve
+or fifteen feet, at best—and I feared they might
+find the arch, but they haven’t. It’s perfectly feasible:
+Malcolm Mor and I did it four years ago, like a bomb.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span>Why, it’s a lark, Hugh; come along. The last one down is
+an old maid.” Hiking her skirt halfway up her white thighs,
+Mary MacAskival stepped over the well-coping, swung
+round, and began to descend the slimy iron rungs. “I locked
+the crypt door on the inside, for I have keys, you know,”
+she whispered up, “but Niven may be pounding on it any
+second, so be quick with you.”</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing for it but to obey this madcap. Down
+Logan went into the cistern; he hoped the old rungs would
+hold. Once his foot caught the girl’s fingers, and she suppressed
+a cry. He heard a faint splash of water below, and
+turned the torch downward, looking between his bare legs.
+Mary MacAskival, her skirt held up almost to her shoulders,
+was more than waist-high in the black water. “There is
+nothing in the world,” she volunteered, “quite like a cold
+tub. Now do as I do, and mind your head, for from floor
+to ceiling is scarcely more than four feet.” She vanished.</p>
+
+<p>Dismayed, Hugh Logan descended to his waist in the
+cold water. Then, on his left, he saw the arch of which
+Mary had spoken: a round-headed masonry arch, very old.
+The cistern water came to within two feet of the crown of
+it. Gingerly, Logan stretched out a leg, found the floor of
+a passage under the arch, gripped Mary’s outstretched hand
+thrust back from the passage, and swung himself from the
+iron rungs to a low tunnel nearly filled with water; he had
+to stoop so that his face cleared the surface by only a few
+inches, and his little pack, strapped to his back, scraped
+against the roof.</p>
+
+<p>Squeezing his hand, Mary MacAskival pulled him along
+the black passage, the torch-beam gleaming on the water.
+She had her skirt twisted round her neck. “One thing’s
+certain,” she panted, “they’ll not hear us here. In the old
+days, this place was flooded altogether, except when The
+MacAskival let water out of the cistern so that men could
+enter the passage. Malcolm Mor—he was the old gardener,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span>remember?—told me that his father’s father’s father’s uncle
+knew of this place, though no living man had seen it for
+a hundred years and more. Malcolm and I found it out
+together. We had grand larks.”</p>
+
+<p>After six yards or so, the floor began to slope upward,
+fairly sharply; and after a dozen yards, they were free of
+the water. “No trousers for you yet, modest Hugh,” Mary
+said, though she had let her skirt fall into place. “There
+is water still to come.” A moment later, they entered a
+small square rock chamber, beyond which loomed another
+narrow passage. “The Picts made this, as they made the
+Whiskey Bottle, Hugh. Look there.” She pointed the
+torch toward one wall, and by it Hugh made out a faint
+band of carving on the wall: little hooded and caped figures,
+faceless, some riding on queer little ponies. “This was a
+chapel, I think, or a tomb; but we haven’t a moment to
+spare just now.” She led the way into the further passage,
+the floor of which sloped downward again. “We’re far beyond
+the Old House now, Hugh.”</p>
+
+<p>The passage shot abruptly downward, and then ended in
+a solid barrier of living rock. Did the girl mean them to
+crouch here indefinitely, on the chance that help might
+come from the mainland before they starved? “I think the
+Picts dug all this for a temple,” she was saying, “or a king’s
+tomb; but the MacAskivals used it as a sortie-port in time
+of siege, or a way of escape if worst came to worst. Oh, I’m
+not strong enough. Tug at it, Hugh!” She was kneeling on
+the rough floor. Handing the torch back to her, Hugh
+Logan felt under his hands a thick stone slab, roughly rectangular.
+He tugged. It could be slid to one side, far enough
+to allow them to squeeze through to whatever lay beneath.
+And beneath was more water. But this water splashed and
+sucked, and the strong stench of seaweed came up from it;
+and from beyond came the roar of the wild Carnglass tide.</p>
+
+<p>“We’re to go into that, Mary?” But Mary MacAskival
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span>already had swung her handsome bare legs through the
+gap. The water just below snarled and surged in the cave,
+as if full of murderous desire. “It’s past midnight, Hugh,
+and the tide has ebbed.” She jumped down.</p>
+
+<p>After all, Logan found when he followed her, the water
+came only to their knees. At high tide, the passage would
+be impossible. He scratched a foot on some sharp submerged
+stone. Roof and floor of the cave now angled downward,
+and the water deepened; but by the time they reached
+the entrance, it was no higher than their waists. “In the
+old days,” Mary said, “little coracles came into this at low
+tide. There is another cave like this on the northern shore,
+but larger, and far harder to reach from the land.” She
+plucked a bit of seaweed from a rock. “This is the carrageen.
+In a better time, I will make you a pudding of it.”
+Then she ducked through the low mouth of the cave, Hugh
+Logan behind her, and they were in the night, by the ocean,
+a cliff at their backs, a splendid moon overhead.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time in many days, the mist and drizzle had
+lifted from Carnglass altogether; and for these islands, the
+sea was calm. But the clear beauty of the night was small
+comfort to these two fugitives: Jackman and his gang might
+hunt them down by that round moon. Mary splashed
+through a rock pool toward the relatively low cliff of gray
+stone that met the ocean at this point. “I think, Hugh, that
+by this time they will have searched the Old House for us,
+and Jackman will know we have got out. But they will not
+know the way that we have gone, and perhaps Jackman
+cannot make the men follow him out of the house this
+night, for they are afraid of every shadow now. Here we’re
+too close to the Old House for safety. We’ll pass between
+Cailleach and the sea-cliffs, and so up to St. Merin’s Chapel;
+that’s best.” When the two of them had got to the foot of a
+faint path that seemed to wind up the cliff, Mary put on
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span>shoes and stockings. “Now, Mr. Barrister Logan, you pillar
+of respectability, you may wear trousers again.”</p>
+
+<p>They climbed; they scrambled; they trotted; when they
+could, they ran. From the cliffs they descended into the
+glen that twisted round the hill of Cailleach, and hurried
+through heaps of stones along a forgotten trail; here, once,
+had been a village, and Duncan MacAskival’s people had
+lived under the thatch of one of these ruins. The girl was
+agile as a deer; it was all Logan could do to keep up with
+her, for his rucksack was curiously heavy. The moonlight
+helped them to make speed, but also it would leave them
+naked unto their enemies, should Jackman and the rest
+come this way. For more than an hour they hurried, until
+they had crossed a valley and saw before them the steep
+way up to the highest point of Carnglass, the headland on
+which stood St. Merin’s Chapel, with the graveyard round
+it. Then Mary flung herself exhausted on the heather, and
+Logan sank down panting beside her. Two or three strange
+white shapes scurried away from them; Logan started. “Are
+those things deer or goats?”</p>
+
+<p>The tired girl laughed at him. “Carnglass sheep, like
+no other sheep on earth. Long legs and long necks, and
+great leapers, and altogether wild.” Everything in this forgotten
+island, it seemed, defied the tooth of time.</p>
+
+<p>But it was no hour for philosophical observations. So
+soon as they had got a little strength back, they must be
+away to the top of the island. And what they could hope
+for there, aside from a brief respite, was more than Logan
+could see. Unarmed, they would be much easier game than
+Donley had been. Jackman and the rest would have their
+blood up. This girl, it might be, had destroyed herself by
+trying to save him. “Here, Hugh,” Mary said, “you’ll want
+this.” She took from the rucksack a paper in which were
+wrapped some scraps of meat, two boiled potatoes, and a
+piece of bread, all this salvaged furtively from Lady MacAskival’s
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span>dinner-tray. Logan, indeed, was ravenous, and
+he ate the lot, Mary insisting that she had got down a late
+supper. As he ate, she told him what had passed since he
+went down the Whiskey Bottle.</p>
+
+<p>When Jackman and Royall had taken Logan to the
+study at gun-point, Mary MacAskival had run to her room
+and locked herself in. It was only much later in the day,
+when Jackman and most of the men were searching for Carruthers,
+that she had bullied out of Niven the fact that
+Logan was shut in the Whiskey Bottle. In her room, she
+had taken out of a chest the only weapon she had, the
+ancient dirk that was said to have been Askival’s, and had
+sat with it in her lap, expecting all the time to have Jackman
+and Royall turn upon her next. But Jackman had only
+tried her door; and, not being able to enter, had called out
+that he would deal with her later. And then he had gone
+out to comb the island for Carruthers, whom they did not
+find; nor did they find anyone else. The men returned
+after sunset, Jackman and Royall going back to the study,
+where they sat talking for hours. The girl had crept to the
+study door and had caught fragments of their argument.</p>
+
+<p>No, they had not found Carruthers; but they had turned
+up something else. When Donley’s body was searched in
+the cellar, one of the men discovered in a pocket a water-soaked
+note. It was nearly illegible; but they could make
+out Logan’s signature, and that it was addressed to the
+police. On this evidence, Jackman and Royall abandoned
+their notion that Logan was an agent of Vlanarov; they
+now took him for a detective. The question remained as
+to what they ought to do with the man in the Whiskey
+Bottle. Royall thought it best to hold him there until they
+could get some boat, and then to run for it, abandoning
+their whole project. But Jackman was for death: Logan
+knew too much, and must go over the cliff. The two exhausted
+fanatics still were debating when the girl slipped
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span>away, but she believed they would dispose of Logan in the
+morning, if not sooner.</p>
+
+<p>So she took Logan’s pack, with what food she could get
+her hands upon, and a pint bottle of paraffin, and Askival’s
+dirk; and she bullied and wheedled Niven, on guard in
+the old tower; and to her immense satisfaction, she had got
+Logan clean away. Jackman and his people had no notion
+of the existence of that passage out of the cistern; Lady
+MacAskival herself had not known of it. When she ran,
+Mary knew that she left her aunt in danger, but Jackman’s
+fanatic voice behind the study door convinced her she
+dared not delay; Jackman would act before his time ran
+out altogether. And here she was, lying beside Hugh Logan
+on the heather.</p>
+
+<p>Behind them hulked the northern heights where St.
+Merin’s Chapel stood. They could hear a little waterfall
+tumbling, in that still night, from the cliff-tops. The burn
+ran through the heather and bracken close by them, lower
+down joining a stream that entered the sea by Askival
+harbor. Now they must climb to their last forlorn refuge.
+First they drank from the peaty burn; then Logan shouldered
+the rucksack, and up they started. They hardly spoke
+in the course of that hard nocturnal climb.</p>
+
+<p>From the summit, nearly an hour later, most of Carnglass
+was dimly visible to them in the moonlight. They
+could make out specks of light away to the southwest: lamps
+burning in the Old House. “Hugh,” Mary said, laying a
+hand on his arm, “Carnglass is the oldest place in the world,
+and the loveliest. Do you hate it? You’ve seen only fright
+and death here. But it was Dr. Jackman that brought the
+terror. If—if we live, Hugh, I’ll show you Carnglass as you
+ought to see it. Can you forgive me for having drawn you
+into this terror?”</p>
+
+<p>“One crowded hour of glorious life,” Logan told her,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span>“really is worth an age without a name. And if I’d not come,
+I’d never have met Miss Mary MacAskival, would I?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” she said, with a little sob, “no. But we can’t loiter
+here.” She took Askival’s dirk from the rucksack. “Hugh,
+take this, and cut some branches off the trees around the
+chapel, as quickly as you can; and I’ll scrape together some
+dead sticks and bits of dry heather; I made a little pile of
+them here weeks ago, on the chance that I might need to
+light them one day. We can burn the rucksack, too, and my
+jacket. They’ll make no grand beacon, but we can do no
+more. The paraffin I brought will start them blazing.”</p>
+
+<p>Logan stared at her. “Who’d see the fire, except Jackman’s
+boys?”</p>
+
+<p>“There’s a chance, Hugh. The night is clear. Besides,
+what other scheme is there? And my people will come.
+They may not come soon enough, but they will come.”</p>
+
+<p>“Your people?” The girl must be sunk in a Carnglass
+fantasy.</p>
+
+<p>“Hurry, Hugh,” was all she said. “It won’t be long
+before dawn.”</p>
+
+<p>They built their poor futile beacon, with what fuel they
+had on that hilltop, and they poured the paraffin upon it,
+and they set it alight with one of Logan’s matches, and
+they added to it the rucksack and Mary’s tweed jacket and
+Hugh’s coat. It flared somewhat better than Hugh had
+expected. But what possibility existed of this being seen
+by any vessel passing in the night, or of being acted upon?
+And it was almost certain that it would guide Jackman.</p>
+
+<p>“We’re only targets here,” Logan said. “At the chapel,
+we’d have some shelter.” They climbed still higher on
+that cliff-plateau, until they came to a low drystone dyke.
+Beyond it were tombstones, white in the moonlight. This
+was Carnglass graveyard; and in the middle of the graveyard
+stood a long, low medieval building, St. Merin’s
+Chapel, battered by five centuries. Away to their right, a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span>tall ruin, infinitely older than the chapel, round, nearly
+forty feet high, windowless and roofless, loomed at the
+brink of the cliff.</p>
+
+<p>On its rough stones flickered the light of their little
+impromptu beacon. “They call that the Pict’s House,”
+said Mary, “or sometimes the Firgower’s House.” The
+tower’s circular wall slanted slightly inward, all round,
+for some twenty feet of its height; then it shot perpendicularly
+to its summit. It was what was called a broch, a strong
+place, Pictish work beyond question. “I do not think that
+really the Pictish chief lived here,” Mary went on, “for
+that room and the passages under the Old House have the
+look of his palace. The Picts lived underground, you know.
+This was a watchtower, and a place of refuge.”</p>
+
+<p>She turned toward the chapel. The firelight was reflected,
+between them and the medieval building, upon a great
+Celtic cross, perhaps fifteen feet high, carved with grotesques
+and convoluted interlacing bands; and it leant
+heavily to one side. This was the Cross of Carnglass, set up
+by the missionaries of St. Columba in the dim Irish age, St.
+Merin’s Cross. Mary led Logan toward it; and, as they came
+close up, she pulled from one of the stunted rowan trees
+which brooded over that windswept graveyard a little twig,
+on which the first leaves of spring had opened. She thrust
+it into the topmost buttonhole of Logan’s shirt. “The
+rowan keeps off wraiths and evil spirits, Hugh,” she said,
+“and St. Merin’s kirkyard is famous for them. Niven thinks
+I am the chief of them. Look at me: am I a witch?”</p>
+
+<p>Mary MacAskival stood before the Cross of Carnglass,
+her red hair brushing the white stone, her haughty nose and
+firm chin marking her as the last of an old, old, fierce line:
+perhaps, truly, the descendant of the Merin whose bones
+lay beneath one of these grass-grown grave mounds. “If
+anyone could call spirits from the vasty deep, you could,
+Mary,” Hugh told her.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span>She smiled queerly. “It may be I will do just that, Hugh
+Logan. But here, I’ll show you the chapel.” She took him
+through a Gothic doorway—the wooden door, ajar, sagged
+on its hinges—and flashed the torch-beam over the tombs
+within. A grotesque stone face, rudely carved, stared at
+them from a niche. Directly before them stood up an ornate
+modern tomb of marble. “Sir Alastair is beneath that. And
+here’s his postbox.” She pointed to a slot in the marble,
+surrounded by a carved funerary wreath; and she slid her
+hand into the opening. “Oh, there’s nothing within now!”
+she said, as if really disappointed. “For years, you know,
+my aunt used to send letters by the butler or footman to
+Sir Alastair in his tomb. And I used to post my letters here,
+too, when I wasn’t watched.”</p>
+
+<p>Post her letters there! Mary must have read the amazement
+on his face, for she added, as if to reassure him of
+her sanity, “Oh, yes. The letter I sent Duncan MacAskival,
+that brought you here, was posted here in Sir Alastair’s
+postbox.” Was this some macabre witticism of the uncanny
+little beauty, or a delusion grown out of dreams and isolation?
+“But we daren’t linger here, Hugh. If Dr. Jackman
+sees our fire, he’ll come up the cliff straight away.” She
+pointed to the old dirk, which Hugh Logan had thrust
+into his belt. “That was Askival’s. You must be my Askival,
+Hugh. I am Merin, you know: Merin of Carnglass, who’s
+haunted this place since time began.” She was half playful,
+half in earnest. The dirk, Logan thought, might be small
+use against the guns of Jackman’s men, but it was some
+comfort. Then he followed Mary MacAskival out of the
+silent chapel, and toward the towering broch by the precipice.
+Their fire still leaped against the night sky of lonely
+Carnglass, but in a few minutes only embers would remain.</p>
+
+<p>“The Pict’s House,” Mary was saying, “is the best place
+we can hide. By the sea, away below these cliffs, is a great
+cave; but even I could not lead you down the path to it in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span>darkness; and besides, the tide is coming in now, and the
+cave will be full almost to the top. It must be the Pict’s
+House for us. One still can climb the stair to the top of it.”
+She was quite calm, as if, having done all that she could
+do, she abandoned herself to fate and fortune. “And from
+the Pict’s House, we can see nearly all of Carnglass, once
+the sun is up.”</p>
+
+<p>They entered the tower through a square doorway ten
+feet above the ground; a worn timber, sea-drift, propped
+against the wall just below the door, made this scramble
+possible. The doorway was capped, by way of lintel, by a
+great stone slab; the Picts had not known the arch. Empty
+and roofless, the round interior cavern of the broch was
+before them, but Mary turned into the wall itself: a circling
+stair led upward, its steps vast rude slabs. By it they
+came to the crumbling summit of the broch, and Logan
+observed, while they climbed, that no mortar lay between
+the cunningly-placed stones of the tower; this was the work
+of men in the dawn of history, and beside it the Old House
+across the island was a thing of yesterday.</p>
+
+<p>Round the top of the broch ran a stone platform. “Stoop
+down behind the parapet, Hugh,” the girl told him, “so
+Jackman won’t see us, if he comes this way.” The earliest
+hint of a spring dawn glimmered in the east; a corncrake
+fluttered up from the parapet. Right below them, the tremendous
+cliffs, the cliffs over which Lagg had gone, fell
+sheer away to the ocean. From this point, the last Pict
+chieftain may have watched the long ships of the Vikings
+as they swept inexorably out of the sea-mist to the north.
+On that sea, nothing was visible this morning but whitecaps
+breaking on a submerged reef.</p>
+
+<p>“No, there’s nothing, no sail,” Mary MacAskival said
+anxiously, almost as if she had expected one. “Do you know
+the tale of the fairy boat, Hugh, that sails through the
+mists? If a girl glimpses it, she vanishes before nightfall. I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span>wish one could carry me off—and you. Now you see my
+Carnglass, Hugh Logan.”</p>
+
+<p>He looked landward. Far to the west-southwest, beyond
+Cailleach, the Old House stood grim on its rock; lower
+down, the New House, among its plantations. Between
+them and the Old House stretched glen and hill, heather
+and bracken, boulder and peat-bog, waterfall and burn. On
+this lovely morning, the mists were quite gone, and there
+was revealed to him the unearthly beauty of the forgotten
+island. The girl took his arm. “Hugh, were it yours, would
+you live here always—or almost always?”</p>
+
+<p>“That I would, Mary MacAskival.” Carnglass, for good
+or evil, set its mark on men.</p>
+
+<p>She faced him squarely, putting her hands on his shoulders.
+“We may be under that sea tonight, Hugh Logan.
+But if we are not, why shouldn’t Carnglass be yours? I’ve
+known you but thirty-six hours, Hugh. You’re all the man
+I need to know. Do you fear me? Some men do, though
+I’m so little.” She kissed him then, and said, “Hugh Logan,
+I have kissed you more times than I have kissed all other
+men in all my life. Do you mean to ask me to marry you?”</p>
+
+<p>Torn between love and doubt, in that high place, Logan
+looked long into her green eyes. “They would say, Mary,
+that I took advantage of a lonely girl who had barely met
+me, for the sake of her money.”</p>
+
+<p>She tossed her bright hair at that. “Don’t be so canny,
+Hugh! Do you know the MacAskival motto, over the door
+of the old tower? ‘They have said and they will say; let
+them be saying.’ The MacAskivals, man or woman, have
+no concern for what they say in Glasgow or Edinburgh or
+London or all the wide world.” Then a look of fright came
+into her flashing eyes. “Is it that you are married already,
+Hugh?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” he said, “but I will be, if we get alive out of this.”
+And as the sun rose, he took her in his arms. Rash, proud,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span>and strange that girl was, perhaps a little mad; but in that
+moment he loved her more than all the kingdoms of the
+earth.</p>
+
+<p>She clung to him, sobbing and laughing softly in her
+moment of triumph and surrender. But abruptly he thrust
+her back, and pulled her below the level of the parapet.
+“Mary, Mary! They’ve come!” For three armed men were
+climbing the slope toward the chapel, and Jackman was
+the first of them. Logan thought that they two had not been
+seen. No shots were fired, at least.</p>
+
+<p>His arm around the girl’s waist, he ventured a second
+glance between two heavy stones that teetered precariously
+on the parapet’s brink. Yes, Jackman and Anderson and
+Powert. The men got over a low wall that ran round the
+graveyard, close by the remnants of the burned-out futile
+beacon. Then they entered the chapel.</p>
+
+<p>“Mary, girl,” he whispered, “they’ll be on us in three or
+four minutes, I think.” She did not cry, but kissed him once
+more, and then composed her young face, as if the MacAskival
+ought to meet enemies without flinching.</p>
+
+<p>“Hugh,” she said, “every second we can delay may help
+us.” He did not see why, but she gave him no time to
+dissent. “Back down the stair, Hugh, and if they try to come
+in, we’ll cast down the timber by the door.” Yes, they could
+do that, though without guns they could do no more than
+delay Jackman briefly. Back down the stair they went, and
+crouched by the empty archaic doorway. It wouldn’t do to
+push away the timber-gangplank that led up from the
+ground unless they must, for the noise of its fall would
+bring Jackman and his men.</p>
+
+<p>Now they heard Jackman’s voice; he was coming right
+round the broch from the chapel. Anderson’s sullen Gallowgate
+mutter replied to Jackman. And in a moment the
+hunters stood just below the broch’s door, though Logan
+dared not look out. “All right, Powert,” Jackman said, “up
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span>with you.” At that, Logan and Mary MacAskival shoved
+against the timber with all their strength. It slid sideways
+and fell to the ground. They showed themselves for an
+instant as they pushed, and someone fired, but the bullet
+passed over their heads into the broch.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, well,” came Jackman’s voice from below, “you <i>did</i>
+lead us a chase, didn’t you? Anderson, Powert, take hold
+there.” The timber was heaved back into place; Logan
+could not risk rising again to push it off, for Jackman
+would have a gun trained on the doorway. “Powert, Mr.
+Logan is not armed,” said Jackman. “Quick, now!” A man
+sprang up the timber and through the door.</p>
+
+<p>Thrusting at him with the dirk, Logan got home to
+Powert’s upper arm, and the man cried out and grappled
+with him. Before he could slash Powert again, Jackman was
+up, and poked the little pistol Meg right into Logan’s face.
+“Gallant, Logan, very gallant; but drop that.” Logan flung
+down the dirk. Mary MacAskival was struggling in Anderson’s
+arms. “A pleasant morning, eh, Logan?” Jackman
+said. “You’ll not see another.”</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">13</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>They took Hugh Logan and Mary MacAskival out of
+the Pict’s House. Anderson tied Logan’s wrists together,
+behind his back, with a length of heavy cord, pulling the
+knots savagely tight. Jackman held the girl by the arm
+meanwhile; and when Anderson had finished with Logan,
+under Jackman’s instructions he tied a cord to Mary’s
+right wrist, and retained the other end of the cord in his
+hand while Jackman removed Powert’s jacket and bandaged
+the flesh-wound with a strip torn from the tail of
+Powert’s shirt. This done, Jackman had Anderson tie the
+other end of Mary’s cord to Jackman’s own left wrist.</p>
+
+<p>“There!” Jackman said, contentedly, “a brisk morning’s
+run, and no harm done. Anderson, Powert and I will
+take this charming couple to the Old House while you
+trot down the brae and call back Ferd and Niven; I think
+they should be near the sheiling this side of Cailleach.”</p>
+
+<p>Anderson glowered at Logan. “Ye said I wud hae the
+thrashin’ o’ that clot, Doctor.”</p>
+
+<p>“That you shall, Anderson, my man, that you shall—once
+we’re at the Old House. I do believe Anderson will
+learn all we need to know from you, Logan, in short order.
+Our treatment of you, Miss MacAskival, will need to be
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span>rather more laborious: the washing of the brain, as our
+Chinese friends say. But it will all come out in the wash,
+won’t it? And Powert, too, will be given his fair turn at
+you, Logan: fair shares for all, eh?” Jackman ran his tongue
+over his thin lips. “In one thing, at least, you seem to have
+told me the truth, Logan: you’ve no people in Carnglass,
+for you’d not have been cowering in that ruin if there
+were any. There’s Carruthers to be accounted for; but I
+suppose he may have missed his footing in the dark and
+have gone over the cliffs. I must confess that my estimate
+of your abilities has diminished, Logan. Whatever possessed
+you to light that fire here by the chapel? You might
+have eluded us four or five hours longer if you hadn’t done
+that. Well, drive him along, Powert.”</p>
+
+<p>With his unwounded arm, Powert gave Logan a fierce
+shove in the back, setting him stumbling in the direction
+of the Old House; and Jackman tugged on Mary’s cord,
+pulling her with him behind Logan and Powert. The
+girl’s face was quite drained of color, but very haughty.
+“My dear,” Jackman said to her, casually, “how changed
+you are going to be within a few days! How very changed!”</p>
+
+<p>Then, from somewhere below in the nearer valley, there
+came to them the crack of a rifle-shot. It was answered
+by another, apparently from a different gun. Next was a
+burst of firing, and then a faint cry.</p>
+
+<p>Jackman’s satisfied smile altered horribly; he was Rumpelstiltskin
+again. “Logan,” he muttered, “is there a man
+of yours in Carnglass, after all? Or is that only Niven’s
+or Caggia’s nerves playing them tricks? Anderson, you
+and I must go down to see. Powert, we’ll leave you with
+Logan; he can’t do you harm. The girl will come with me.
+We’ll send back a man to help you get Logan to the Old
+House, Powert.”</p>
+
+<p>Powert most obviously did not relish the plan. “Coom,
+Dr. Jackman, I’ve a bad arm, and this cove’s a queer one.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span>“Nonsense,” Jackman said, “we’ll bind his feet, too,
+until we send Anderson or someone else for you.” Away
+below, there was only silence, but Jackman ran his hand
+across his forehead uneasily. “Here: we’ll put him inside
+the chapel with you, and you can watch the door, with
+your back to the wall: that’s safe enough.” Powert scowled,
+but shoved Logan toward the door of St. Merin’s Chapel.
+Jackman herded the four of them inside.</p>
+
+<p>Now that the dawn came through the broken tracery
+of the chapel’s pointed windows, Logan could see that the
+single room contained seven or eight tombs raised above
+the floor, some of them very old; and a number of the
+flagstones, deeply incised by some rude stonecarver, apparently
+covered other graves. “Wha’ in hell’s yon!” cried
+Anderson, abruptly, pointing.</p>
+
+<p>Near the northeast corner of the room, one of the flagstones
+had been raised, and now was leant against the
+wall. Where it had lain, a little mound of earth, freshly
+dug, protruded above the floor; and in the earth was
+thrust a curiously primitive wooden spade. The mound
+was about six feet long. They all crowded close to it. An
+earthenware dish had been set atop the mound, and the
+dish was filled with, of all things, nails and what looked
+like salt. Across the dish lay a branch from a rowan tree.
+“That,” Mary MacAskival said softly to Dr. Jackman,
+“is how the spirits of the newly dead are laid in these
+islands.”</p>
+
+<p>“Wha’ fule’s been diggin’ graves?” Anderson growled,
+looking back over his shoulder toward the empty doorway.</p>
+
+<p>Jackman stood rigid; then, “I think Carruthers must
+be under that clay. Anderson, take the spade and uncover
+him.” Mary MacAskival shivered slightly.</p>
+
+<p>Anderson cursed, but under Jackman’s hard eye he
+began to shovel. The grave was very shallow. In a minute
+or two, a heavy shape could be made out, wrapped in a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span>big piece of tarred canvas. “That will be the head at the
+far end,” Jackman whispered. “Powert, draw the canvas
+from the face.”</p>
+
+<p>Mary had turned away, but Logan, dreadfully fascinated,
+saw clearly the smashed and fallen face of a man
+he never had looked upon before. And Jackman screamed:
+he screamed twice, and so terribly that his men shook,
+for the screams were worse than the ruined face in the
+grave. “Lagg! It’s Lagg!”</p>
+
+<p>Quivering, Anderson dropped the spade. “Aye,” he said,
+“Tam Lagg, that we pit ower the cliff into the sea. For
+the love o’ God, Powert, cover his mug.”</p>
+
+<p>Powert, his teeth chattering, let the canvas drop back
+over the corpse.</p>
+
+<p>“Logan,” shrieked Jackman, turning a frantic face on
+him, “Logan, what are you? What are you? Do you make
+dead men rise from the sea? Was it you that put this
+thing here?” He had the pistol in his hand, and thrust
+it against Logan’s middle.</p>
+
+<p>He will fire now, Logan thought, for he’s quite out of
+his head. There was the sound of a shot. But I’m not hit,
+Logan realized; I feel nothing. Jackman sprang away and
+looked out the doorway; the shot, after all, had come from
+outside, though in his tension Logan had thought, for an
+instant, that Jackman had pulled the trigger. Yet surely
+a gun had gone off fairly close at hand.</p>
+
+<p>“Anderson, watch this door,” Jackman ordered; he
+had a measure of control over himself. “Powert, give me
+that rope.” He forced Logan to sit, and tied his ankles
+together. “We’ll return for you in a few minutes, Powert.”</p>
+
+<p>“Me? I’ll not sit here by the dead man.” Powert scarcely
+could hold his rifle.</p>
+
+<p>Jackman sent him a deadly look from those glowering
+black eyes of his. “You’ll be another dead man yourself,
+Powert, if I hear another word from you. Now, Anderson,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span>we’ll look into this. Miss MacAskival, if you cry out, I’ll
+be forced to put a bullet through your head.” He shoved
+her through the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>“Hugh,” Mary called back, reckless of Jackman, “Hugh,
+I love you!” Then she and Jackman and Anderson were
+out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>Powert, left with Logan and the corpse, still shook; and
+he cursed Logan and Jackman and Carnglass while he
+made his preparations as if for siege. He pushed the helpless
+Logan roughly against Sir Alastair’s tomb, facing
+away from the doorway, and parallel with the open grave
+and the awful thing under the canvas. Then he pulled
+shut the sagging door of the chapel, so that some force
+would be required to budge it; and he himself leaned
+against a tombstone that came up to his shoulders, with
+his face toward the door, and his rifle in his hands, the barrel
+resting upon the head of another tombstone. So situated,
+Powert could watch the door, keep an eye on Logan and
+the sheeted thing, and have the comforting feel of stone
+at his back.</p>
+
+<p>Logan himself, after the repeated shocks of that fair
+morning, was in little better state than Powert. Silent,
+he lay motionless against the tomb of Sir Alastair MacAskival,
+his brain dull, dull, dull. There were no more
+shots outside: only the rustle of a breeze in the rowan
+trees. The stillness was a trying thing. Powert was mumbling
+to himself: obscenities, blasphemies, scraps of nearly-forgotten
+prayer. The sunlight was pouring into the
+chapel through the unglazed Gothic windows. Five or six
+minutes passed thus.</p>
+
+<p>Then a faint sound came. Was something stirring in
+the high graveyard grass, just outside the closed door?
+Did the door itself creak, as if very gently tried? “Anderson,”
+Powert cried out, choking, “is it you, man? Dr.
+Jackman?” Nothing answered. Did the door creak again,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span>ever so slightly, or was it the breeze? “Sing out,” Powert
+shouted, glaring wild-eyed at the flimsy door, “or I’ll
+shoot!”</p>
+
+<p>High in the wall behind Powert was one of the pointed
+windows, its stone tracery for the most part broken away.
+It must be at least eight feet above the level of the graveyard.
+Though Logan could see this window, Powert, intent
+on the doorway, could not. And as something rose
+cautiously above the windowsill, from outside, Logan bit
+his lip to keep back a cry.</p>
+
+<p>It was a man’s head that cut off the morning light: a
+lean man, keen-eyed; and there was a long white beard on
+his chin; and there was a little black knife between his
+teeth. His eyes took in the room. Steadying himself by
+clutching the broken tracery with his left hand, stealthily
+he rose until his shoulders came above the window-ledge.
+In his brown right hand he held a large stone.</p>
+
+<p>As if someone had thrust tentatively against it, the
+rotten door creaked shrilly. “Damn you,” Powert was crying,
+“speak up, or I’ll shoot.” The white-bearded man
+outside the window drew back his arm and flung the stone
+with great force, as if letting fly at a rabbit. The rock
+caught Powert at the back of his head; he fell to his knees,
+the rifle clattering on the flagstones. At that the door burst
+open, and two men tumbled into the room, and were
+upon Powert before he could recover. A boy followed
+them, and, kneeling by Logan, looked shyly into his face.
+These were the two men and the boy, MacAskivals from
+Daldour, that Logan had seen in Loch Boisdale, four days
+before.</p>
+
+<p>Then there strode through the doorway a very tall old
+man, erect and vigorous and bearded to his chest, with a
+shotgun in his hand. He was worth looking at; but another
+man, hard on his heels, was still stranger. This was a
+burly, broad-shouldered fellow, with a heavy, jolly face,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span>and mild eyes that were exceedingly odd, though it would
+have been difficult to say why. Something in the look of
+his face was queer enough. Yet it was his clothing that
+made him conspicuous. The other men wore the caps and
+canvas cloaks and rough homespun tweeds of the crofters
+and fishermen in the remoter Isles. This burly man, in
+strong contrast, was dressed in what seemed to be the garments
+of a laird or prosperous farmer: green tweed
+jacket, green corduroy breeches and long stockings, good
+heavy shoes. Under the open jacket was a soiled yellow
+waistcoat; and on his head was a battered porkpie hat.
+These clothes were in wretched repair, with dark stains
+here and there upon them. The breeches, seemingly split
+at the seams, were held together by pins. One sleeve of
+the jacket was ripped open from shoulder to wrist. And
+although the clothes had been got on, they did not fit the
+man who wore them.</p>
+
+<p>Resting a hand on the boy’s shoulder, the tall old man
+bent over Logan and spoke in Gaelic. Logan shook his
+head: “I know only English.” Frowning, the old man
+muttered through his splendid beard to the boy beside him.</p>
+
+<p>The boy stammered a little, as if overwhelmed with
+shyness; but there was no fear in him. He spoke to Logan
+in good, if careful, English. “Malcolm Mor MacAskival
+of Daldour asks what is your name, and what do you do
+in Carnglass.” The pirate-like old man looked hard at
+Logan.</p>
+
+<p>These, then, were Mary MacAskival’s people! She had
+not been woolgathering when she spoke of them. How
+she had summoned them, Hugh Logan did not know;
+but the five of them—two had gagged Powert, and were
+sitting on the man—were staring at Logan intently. This
+was no time for long explanations. “Untie me,” Logan
+said. “I am Hugh Logan, and I am to marry Miss Mary
+MacAskival.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span>There was a murmur from the men, and all five MacAskivals
+of Daldour took off their caps deferentially, and
+then put them back on again. With a fisherman’s deftness,
+old Malcolm Mor undid the cords about Logan’s wrists
+and ankles, and the two men who looked like twins
+promptly bound Powert with them. As he released Logan,
+Malcolm Mor said, in decent English, “Then I am your
+man, sir, and so are my sons and my grandson, and my
+nephew Angus, and my nephew Kenneth who is not here.
+We saw the man with the third eye lead the lady away.
+Will we go after her?” Malcolm Mor tapped his shotgun.
+Malcolm Mor’s two sons had old rifles; the boy and Angus,
+the queer burly man in the queerer clothes, were unarmed.
+One of the sons, almost bowing, handed Powert’s
+rifle to Logan as he stood up and tried to get the blood
+to circulate in his tingling wrists and ankles.</p>
+
+<p>Hugh Logan surveyed his little army. “Yes, we will,” he
+said, “if they don’t come after us first. Just now they’re
+down in the valley hunting someone; but some of them will
+come back to the chapel.” These men, he thought, would
+be good shots; and to live in Daldour, they must be hardy
+and probably courageous, though he doubted whether they
+had much experience at man-killing.</p>
+
+<p>“It is my nephew Kenneth that they are hunting,” Malcolm
+Mor observed. “I sent him to watch them from the
+bracken. It was Kenneth who shot his gun to lead them
+away from the chapel. They will not find him. We have
+watched them for a week, but we did not understand what
+they did, and there was no gentleman to lead us. We would
+have shot the man with the third eye when he took the lady
+away, but we were afraid that she might be hurt. Is it so
+that they are robbers and murderers?”</p>
+
+<p>“That they are,” Logan said, emphatically.</p>
+
+<p>“Then,” Malcolm Mor went on, in the slow, gentle
+Island English, “it would be lawful for us to hunt them?”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span>Logan suspected that the people of Daldour were extremely
+shy of the law.</p>
+
+<p>“It would,” Logan told him. “I am a lawyer, and I give
+you my authority.”</p>
+
+<p>Malcolm Mor MacAskival’s old eyes lit up, and he smiled
+as some Norse rover might have smiled. “Then, sir,” he
+said, “we will go after the lady, and take the Old House of
+Fear.” He seemed to have no doubt whatsoever of the
+success of this undertaking by five or six men and a boy.
+“There are three more able-bodied men in Daldour, but we
+have no time to fetch them. Kenneth, my nephew, will
+come to us soon. Will we go down into the valley now, Mr.
+Logan?”</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s have a look about,” Logan said. The men followed
+him through the chapel doorway. When Logan had thrown
+his rucksack on the fire, he had stuffed his binoculars into
+a trouser-pocket; and now he pulled them out and stared
+through them in the direction of the Old House; but, what
+with hills, rocks, and clumps of trees and thickets of
+bracken, he could see no one moving.</p>
+
+<p>Then, a hundred yards away, and ascending toward the
+chapel, Anderson came into view. Logan dropped the binoculars
+and snatched up his rifle, but Anderson had seen
+them before he could get the gun to his shoulder. For a
+second, Anderson stared aghast; then, flinging himself
+around, he leaped downhill, vanishing into bracken, reappearing
+on a knoll, slipping, almost rolling down a talus-slope,
+merging with the blur of gray rock and purple
+heather and green bracken. Logan fired twice, but could
+not have hit him. At that, Malcolm Mor and his two sons
+brought up their guns and fired also. They did not really
+take aim, and Logan thought they meant to frighten,
+rather than to wound; but also he thought that they could
+be brought to shoot to kill if they must.</p>
+
+<p>“We can catch him,” Malcolm Mor said, like a dog eager
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>for the word from his master. “He is a town man, and we
+are faster.”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” Logan decided, shaking his head, “no, there’ll
+be three others down there, and they have Miss MacAskival
+with them, on a rope. We’ll go down and after them, but
+together; and no one must shoot if the lady might be hurt.”
+This deliberation was agony to Logan himself, but he had
+been an officer, and he knew something of tactics.</p>
+
+<p>The MacAskivals nodded. “My nephew Kenneth will
+be watching them from the bracken,” Malcolm Mor said.
+“We will go down, and he will join us; and if they take the
+lady to the Old House, then we will follow them into the
+house.”</p>
+
+<p>Malcolm Mor’s nephew Angus, the burly man in the
+dirty yellow waistcoat, was nodding and smiling at every
+word his old uncle uttered. “Do you have a gun?” Logan
+said to him. The man opened his mouth, but words did not
+come out: only mouthed grunts, rather horrid. Malcolm
+Mor seemed somewhat embarrassed.</p>
+
+<p>“He can not speak,” the boy—Malcolm Gille was his
+name—said apologetically. “He is called”—here the boy
+seemed to seek the English equivalent of a Gaelic term, and
+emerged triumphantly—“he is called Dumb Angus.” Dumb
+Angus nodded enthusiastically at the mention of his name.
+“And,” the boy went on, “he is simple. Dumb Angus is
+simple, and does not have a gun, but he is very strong, and
+he is honest, and he makes many jokes.” Dumb Angus
+bowed and smiled, and tapped himself on the head to
+prove that he knew he was simple. “He cannot speak,” the
+boy said, “but he makes jokes in other ways.”</p>
+
+<p>Logan checked Powert’s rifle, and reloaded; one of Malcolm’s
+sons—their names, it turned out, were John and
+Robert—brought him a cartridge-pouch that Powert had
+worn. What ought they to do with Powert? Malcolm Mor,
+now assured that the majesty of the law sheltered the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span>persecuted sept of MacAskival, speculatively fingered the
+little black knife in his belt. “No,” said Logan, “we’ll bring
+them all to trial, if we can.”</p>
+
+<p>“There is one already taken and locked away,” Malcolm
+Mor offered. “His name, I think, is Carruthers. We took
+him the night before last night, and carried him to Daldour,
+and locked him in a byre, and he is afraid, for he
+thinks that we will eat him. Dumb Angus made him think
+so; that is one of the jokes of Dumb Angus. It is pleasant to
+have Dumb Angus in Daldour. We could carry this man,
+too, to Daldour, but there is not time.”</p>
+
+<p>Dumb Angus was gesturing and beckoning, and pointing
+upward. At the east end of the chapel, behind the altar,
+ran a kind of low loft or gallery, of wood, probably built
+when the chapel was re-roofed by Sir Alastair MacAskival.
+“Yes,” said Logan, “that will do. Put Powert there, at the
+back, and no one is likely to notice him until we need
+him.” The sons of Malcolm carried Powert up the short
+flight of wooden steps, and tightened the cords and his gag.
+Dumb Angus might be simple, but he had eyes in his head.</p>
+
+<p>And now they could start in pursuit of Jackman, for
+Mary MacAskival’s sake. Anderson probably would have
+warned Jackman and the others by this time; but the warning
+might do no mischief, for those four guns going off at
+his heels must have sounded to Anderson as if half the
+constabulary of Scotland were after him. They could not
+catch Jackman and the rest before they reached the Old
+House, the odds were, nor would it have been safe to fire
+at the retreating gang with Mary MacAskival in their midst.
+But by night, Logan was resolved, he and the Daldour
+people would make their try. “Well, gentlemen,” he said to
+Malcolm Mor and the others, “if you’re ready, I am.” And
+they started down the brae.</p>
+
+<p>As they trotted and scrambled toward the valley, the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span>boy running by Logan’s side, Logan said to Malcolm Gille,
+“Why does Dumb Angus wear such clothes?”</p>
+
+<p>“Those clothes were not his.” The boy smiled broadly.
+“It is one of the jokes of Dumb Angus. They are the
+clothes of Mr. Lagg, the factor, that we found broken below
+the cliffs and buried in the chapel of St. Merin. For
+Dumb Angus, it is always Hallowe’en.”</p>
+
+<p>The humor of Daldour, Logan took it, had its grisly
+side. Dumb Angus it must have been that Rab had encountered
+two nights before. If even the simpletons of
+Daldour—and the whole band of Daldour MacAskivals
+was a remarkably odd-looking lot—were this resourceful, it
+might be just possible for Logan to get Mary alive out of
+the Old House.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">14</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>On the flank of Cailleach, a little ferret-like man rose out
+of the heather to join Logan and the MacAskivals: Kenneth
+MacAskival. Like the rest of his family, he really understood
+English, when he chose, and could speak it tolerably
+well when he had to. On learning from Malcolm Mor
+that this gentleman was the betrothed of The MacAskival,
+Kenneth gave Logan his report.</p>
+
+<p>After firing twice that morning to draw Jackman away
+from the chapel, Kenneth MacAskival had contented himself
+with creeping through the bracken and spying on the
+retreating party. The lady, Kenneth said, never spoke, so
+far as he could hear; though the men thrust her roughly
+along when, led on a cord as she was, she stumbled. They
+would be at the Old House within a few minutes, the man
+with the third eye and the rest, and could not be intercepted.</p>
+
+<p>Logan and his men did not move toward the Old House
+so fast as they could have. For Jackman might have laid
+an ambush, which had to be watched for among the rocks
+and dens of rugged Carnglass. Once, through his binoculars,
+Logan caught a glimpse of a hurrying figure, very close
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span>to the Old House; then it was hidden again by a low intervening
+ridge.</p>
+
+<p>Either of two courses he might take, Logan thought. He
+might send the MacAskivals in their lobster boat to Loch
+Boisdale or whatever other port they could reach that had
+a police station, and ask for prompt help. But this would
+take hours, many hours, and meanwhile Jackman would
+have Mary MacAskival in the Old House. And Jackman
+would be thinking of the ruin of his scheme, and of the
+gelignite in the cellars. Besides, would any police constable
+believe such a story, from such a crew as the MacAskivals,
+without telegraphing to Glasgow or Edinburgh for orders,
+which would mean delays? No, that plan wouldn’t do.</p>
+
+<p>So there remained to Logan only the storming of the
+Old House. Briefly, he thought of trying to enter through
+the passage in the rock by which Mary and he had escaped;
+but that was no go, since one of Jackman’s riflemen at the
+cistern-mouth could kill anyone who tried to ascend. They
+would have to rush the place from outside.</p>
+
+<p>The thing could not be tried until evening, for Jackman
+had more men within the Old House than Logan had
+without, and Jackman’s men were desperate, well armed,
+and probably experienced in killing. By day, it would have
+been mad. The oldest tower, with its little windows and
+iron bars, would have been impossible to take even if defended
+by only one or two riflemen, unless the attackers
+had mortars. The Renaissance block was nearly as strong.
+But the Victorian addition was another matter. The gate
+was stout, and the ground-floor windows were small,
+covered by iron grills, and shuttered within. The plate-glass
+windows of the first floor, however, were immense and
+undefended, and could be reached with a long ladder—after
+dark. Even supposing Logan and his men got inside
+the Old House, they still would be outnumbered. Their
+hope was that before they should make their rush, they
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span>might be able to demolish the morale of Jackman’s people,
+already badly shaken.</p>
+
+<p>To help Mary, Logan would have taken any risk: if getting
+himself shot would have saved her, he would have
+rushed the Old House that hour. But the best chance for
+saving her, it seemed to him, lay in keeping Jackman’s
+people very much on edge, and busy—and in praying that
+Jackman himself might not go mad altogether. And this
+meant that some eight hours, eight intolerable hours for
+Logan, must pass before he could act.</p>
+
+<p>But meanwhile he could prepare. Giving the Old House
+a wide berth, he led the MacAskivals to the farm steading
+nearest the castle. Before the troubles had begun, Simmons
+had kept the steading in some order, though there were
+only two animals about the place: two shaggy and ill-tempered
+little Barra horses, grazing in a small field. Having
+caught the horses, the MacAskivals harnessed them to a
+farm cart. This they loaded with straw, and with what loose
+lumber they could find; also they put two gallon tins of
+paraffin, discovered in the farmhouse, into the cart. In a
+shed they came upon a long ladder, which they piled atop
+straw and lumber. Then, keeping out of range of fire from
+the Old House, Dumb Angus and Malcolm Gille took the
+horses and cart circuitously round to the wooded policies of
+the New House, which was as close to the Victorian wing of
+the Old House as they could get without being fired upon.</p>
+
+<p>While this operation was going forward, Logan sent
+Kenneth and John MacAskival to the rocky and bracken-covered
+hillsides that were barely within extreme firing
+range of the Old House. And there the two veteran
+poachers commenced a desultory fire against the windows
+of the Old House. Logan gave Powert’s rifle to Kenneth, as
+the best weapon available, taking Kenneth’s shotgun for
+himself. Concealed as they were by dense bracken, and
+shifting position after every shot, there was little danger of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span>the MacAskivals being hit by retaliatory fire from the Old
+House. For their part, the MacAskivals were instructed not
+really to attempt to hit anyone, but to spend their time
+shattering panes and nerves. The windows of Mary’s room
+in the old tower they left untouched. Lady MacAskival’s
+room was on the seaward side of the Old House, and so
+safe. For that matter, the whole garrison of the Old House
+could retreat to the seaward rooms and temporary security,
+except for what luckless sentinels Dr. Jackman might leave
+to guard against a sudden rush. By early afternoon, every
+pane on the eastern side of the Old House had been
+shattered, except those in Mary MacAskival’s windows.</p>
+
+<p>For the first hour of this, three or four marksmen replied
+from the Old House. But they could have seen almost
+nothing to shoot at, and their risk of being struck by flying
+windowglass, if not by bullets, was considerable. The return
+fire slackened perceptibly in the second hour, and
+after that there came only infrequent shots from a single
+rifle on the second floor, as if to demonstrate that the defenders
+were still awake. Another rifleman on the roof of the
+old tower was driven below early in the game. What all this
+did to the nerves of Jackman’s men—this sniping by an unknown
+body of enemies, who had not even made a formal
+demand for the surrender of the Old House—Logan could
+only surmise. The loss of Powert, too, coming on the heels
+of Carruthers’ disappearance and the discovery of Lagg’s
+body, must have made an impression.</p>
+
+<p>Logan sent Robert MacAskival round to keep an eye on
+the back of the old tower, to make sure no one slipped out
+by the garden gate; the man hid himself behind an outcrop
+of rock and bided his time, leaving the shooting to the
+others. Accompanied by Malcolm Mor, Logan himself
+watched the main entrance from the plantation that
+stretched from the New House nearly to the rock of the
+Old House. And from Malcolm Mor, as they lay on their
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span>bellies under cover, that warm and fatal spring day, Logan
+pieced together a good deal more of the history of the recent
+troubles in Carnglass.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Poaching in Carnglass the shy twilight folk of Daldour
+took for a natural right. The older people of the Daldour
+MacAskivals, like Malcolm Mor, had been born in Carnglass
+and looked upon it as Eden; several of them, from
+time to time, right down to the coming of Dr. Jackman as
+Lady MacAskivals guest and master, had been servants at
+the Old House or on the two farms. Life in that windswept
+peat-bog Daldour was precarious at best, and the dwindling
+race of the MacAskival crofters and fisherfolk had considered
+the killing of a sheep or a deer in Carnglass as no
+more than getting back a bit of their lost patrimony. That
+the sheep and the deer nominally belonged to old Lady
+MacAskival was little to them: she was a mere Lowlander,
+a MacAskival only by marriage—a bad marriage at that—and
+their enemy.</p>
+
+<p>So whenever they dared—especially in the early morning
+or the evening, when the gamekeepers might be in their
+cottages—the Daldour men, for years, had landed in Carnglass
+under cover of darkness or fog, most commonly mooring
+their lobster-boats in a great cave under the headland
+on which St. Merin’s Chapel stood. The cave was known
+to very few; and though the ascent was precarious even for
+MacAskivals, still the descent was so risky as to daunt even
+the boldest hired gamekeeper, most of the time.</p>
+
+<p>And it seemed that the taking ways of the Daldour MacAskivals,
+in recent years, had been winked at by The MacAskival
+herself, Miss Mary. For she had been a little girl
+on a barren island croft, and knew the rigors of the
+Daldour life. Besides, she was adored by, and adored, old
+Malcolm Mor, the chief man in Daldour, who for some
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span>years turned from fishing and poaching to being the
+gardener at the Old House, until Lagg gave him the sack.
+Malcolm Mor told her tales of the vanished glories of the
+MacAskivals, and of the witcheries of Carnglass, and
+showed the schoolgirl, during her Carnglass summers, the
+secrets of the Old House and of the Carnglass caves. What
+Malcolm Mor’s kith and kin did, Mary MacAskival overlooked
+when overlooking was discreet. Now and again, on
+lonely rambles to the further reaches of the deserted island,
+Mary would meet with the furtive deer-stalkers and sheep-stealers
+from Daldour, who blended with gorse and heather
+and bracken when anyone else showed his face; and they
+would tip their caps, and offer the girl strange things
+washed up from the sea, such as “Mary’s Nut,” a Molucca
+bean, come by the Gulf Stream all the way from the Caribbean—for
+it brought good fortune, if worn on a chain
+round the neck.</p>
+
+<p>As for Malcolm Mor, even after canny and tight-fisted
+Tam Lagg discharged the old pirate, Mary MacAskival kept
+in touch with him by a sepulchral line of communications.
+Their system was this: on her walks, Mary would slip a
+note into the receptacle in Sir Alastair’s tomb at the chapel,
+and Malcolm would pick it up when next he climbed over
+the cliff-head from his boat moored in the cave far below.
+Malcolm Mor, though he was ashamed of the accomplishment
+as a decadent concession to modern civilization, could
+write a primitive English, and he would scrawl in his
+crabbed hand brief and respectful replies to The MacAskival’s
+communications, giving news of his family to the
+lonely girl, and of how the fishing had gone. So long as she
+was permitted to ramble at will in Carnglass, Mary MacAskival
+could send letters to the outer world through this
+tomb postbox, for old Duncan would post them in Loch
+Boisdale on the few occasions when the lobster boat crossed
+the rough waters to South Uist. Thus she had contrived to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span>send her last message, the unsigned note, crumpled and
+water-stained, which reached Duncan MacAskival in Michigan.
+After that she had been too closely watched by Jackman
+and his men to make the attempt, and toward the end
+she had not been able to leave the Old House at all.</p>
+
+<p>Before the coming of Jackman, and while Lady MacAskival
+retained some vigor and Lagg had the management
+of the island in his hands, two or three reasonably
+zealous gamekeepers made the poaching by the Daldour
+men a career of danger and daring, which they dared not
+attempt more than once a month, at best. The keepers’
+shotguns had wounded two or three of old Malcolm’s sons
+and grandsons, and once the keepers almost had seized the
+boat moored in the cave.</p>
+
+<p>But after Jackman’s men replaced the old servants, the
+people at the Old House scarcely visited the hinterland of
+Carnglass. Donley, nominally the new keeper, ordinarily
+stuck fairly close to his cottage near the Old House, and
+the regions round Dalcruach and St. Merin’s Chapel, especially,
+became safe ground for the poachers. More and
+more of the queer, long-legged, long-necked, soft-fleeced
+sheep of Carnglass, and now and then a deer, were borne
+off triumphantly in the lobster boat to hungry Daldour.</p>
+
+<p>Only one aspect of the new regime in Carnglass troubled
+the Daldour MacAskivals: Dr. Jackman and his ways. They
+spied upon him from the bracken, and sometimes crept
+close enough to perceive the curious spot in his forehead—which,
+among these misty folk who told legends over their
+peat fires and never saw the penny press and never heard
+a wireless, was at once recognized as the supernatural Third
+Eye of a Carnglass warlock. They saw the rough crew of
+town toughs he had gathered round him, too, and their
+suspicions grew. And Mary MacAskival rarely came forth
+from the Old House; at last she did not come at all, though
+they could glimpse her sometimes at the summit of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span>tower or in the little walled garden. For the people of
+Daldour, Miss Mary MacAskival was the symbol of their
+identity, and the hope of their salvation: for she had told
+old Malcolm, more than once that, when she was mistress
+in the island, she would bring back the MacAskivals to the
+farms and the crofts from which her aunt had expelled the
+last of them in 1914. The man with the third eye, they told
+one another, meant Mary MacAskival no good. They continued
+to watch. None of them were cowards, but they were
+shy of the law, for the law had expelled them from Carnglass;
+and besides, they were poachers, and in Daldour
+secret distillers of whiskey on which they paid no duty.</p>
+
+<p>There were not many of them in Daldour, and few of
+the men were young. Of the men who should have been in
+their thirties, several had died during the war as naval or
+merchant seamen; and nearly all the rest, acquiring new
+tastes during their military service or unable to find places
+for themselves in the island, had gone off to Glasgow or
+America. The old and middle-aged MacAskival men in
+Daldour, for lack of young blood, withdrew more and more
+from the modern world, so far as modernity ever had
+touched them at all. They were shy of the law, shy of people
+from the mainland, shy of townsfolk, shy even of crofters
+and fishermen from the other islands.</p>
+
+<p>A week ago, four MacAskivals, Malcolm Mor leading
+them, had put out in their boat, cloaked by fog and the setting
+of the sun, to land again at the foot of the cliffs below
+St. Merin’s Chapel. Only the MacAskivals of Daldour could
+sail those treacherous waters in such weather. As they had
+been about to moor the boat in the cave under the cliff,
+Dumb Angus had taken Malcolm by the shoulder and
+pointed excitedly. Caught between two rocks near the
+cave’s mouth, and awash in the ebbing tide, was the body
+of a man. They drew the corpse into their boat. It was Tam
+Lagg, who had been factor of Carnglass, and his corpse was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span>terribly battered; he must have fallen from the cliffs. His
+hat they found a little later, lodged in a clump of ferns a
+few yards up the cliff.</p>
+
+<p>“The sea casts its dead upon Carnglass,” a proverb of the
+Islands runs. Many men have drowned on the reefs in those
+waters, or have been caught in the currents and hurled
+against the cliffs in their boats; but it is a strange truth
+that the whirlpools and eddies in that merciless sea seem to
+bring up drowned men from miles round, and lodge what
+is left of them among the rocks or on the narrow beaches
+of the island called the Heap of Stones. The four men in
+the Daldour lobster boat had looked often upon drowned
+corpses; and they never failed to give those derelicts decent
+burial, that they themselves might one day need in their
+turn. The graveyard round the chapel in Carnglass, and the
+smaller graveyard by the bare beach in Daldour, were
+dotted with little wooden crosses marking the graves of
+seamen and soldiers from torpedoed transports that had
+gone down between Uist and Carnglass.</p>
+
+<p>Bury Tam Lagg, then, the MacAskivals must. But they
+were afraid of the man with the third eye, at the Old House
+of Fear, who might lay the blame of this strange death
+upon them, since they had enjoyed an old vendetta with
+the factor of Carnglass; so they made no attempt to report
+the discovery of the body to the people in the Old House.
+They thought it best not to bury Lagg in Daldour, lest
+the body be found by strangers there and the MacAskivals
+be accused of foul play. So they wrapped Lagg in an old
+piece of canvas and, with great difficulty, got the body
+to the top of the cliffs, where they buried it in St. Merin’s
+Chapel. On the grave they left a saucer of salt and nails,
+with a rowan twig atop it, to keep Lagg’s wraith from
+wandering, should it be restless; for they thought it strange
+that a man so long familiar with Carnglass should fall to
+his death.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span>They were not sorry that Lagg was dead: they had detested
+him. And Dumb Angus, who dug the grave, took
+Lagg’s clothes by way of compensation, and put them on,
+so that he looked for all the world like a stout scarecrow in
+those torn and stained garments. Malcolm Mor feared that
+this act might bring ill luck, but did not interfere, for they
+were accustomed to let poor Angus have his way in all
+reasonable things. And besides, Angus looked wonderfully
+comic in Lagg’s clothes, and made the MacAskivals
+laugh, and so was happy. Many of the jokes of Dumb Angus
+were no stranger than this.</p>
+
+<p>Logan learned these matters from Malcolm Mor there on
+the edge of the New House plantation of firs and aspens,
+while every ten minutes or so a rifle went off on the landward
+side of the Old House; Kenneth and John firing at
+the windows. Logan’s men had no great supply of ammunition,
+but it was necessary to keep Jackman’s people in
+constant uneasiness, so that the final rush on the Old House
+might have some chance for success. As Logan and Malcolm
+lay talking, Dumb Angus crawled up to join them,
+having finished his work of loading the farm cart and
+getting it into the New House plantations.</p>
+
+<p>“Dumb Angus is simple,” Malcolm Mor said, smiling at
+the burly man, “but also he is clever. He made the joke
+better by a doing all his own. Show Mr. Logan what it was
+you made, Angus.”</p>
+
+<p>Very cheerfully, Angus took off the injured green porkpie
+hat he had inherited from Thomas Lagg. Then he
+reached into a little leather bag that hung suspended from
+one of his shoulders, and drew out a thing seemingly shapeless.
+He pulled the thing all the way over his head, as if it
+had been a rubber mask, and clapped his hat back on.
+Then, gobbling unintelligibly, he looked Logan full in the
+face.</p>
+
+<p>The effect was the more horrid because at first Logan
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span>could not recognize the origin of this dreadful mask Dumb
+Angus had assumed. It was not human, and yet had a
+semblance of humanity. It hung loosely on the head. It had
+nostrils, but no true nose, and a drooping dreadful mouth,
+and holes where its eye-sockets should be, with Dumb
+Angus’s eyes glowing behind them. Angus wriggled with
+happiness at the effect he produced upon Logan. It was the
+face of one of the peculiar sheep of Carnglass, painstakingly
+skinned from the whole skull of the beast and made a
+loathsome mask by Angus MacAskival.</p>
+
+<p>If this was what Rab had seen in the gloaming, with the
+dead Lagg’s clothing on the heavy body below it, it was no
+wonder that dull-witted Rab had gone frantic with dread.
+“Poor Angus makes this on every Hallowe’en,” Malcolm
+Mor was saying, “but this time he made it in the spring,
+because he had taken Mr. Lagg’s clothes, and wished to
+make us laugh.”</p>
+
+<p>On the same evening that the MacAskivals buried Lagg,
+they had caught a glimpse of Donley skulking among
+boulders near Dalcruach, and they had hurried back to
+their boat and returned to Daldour, thinking that Donley
+might have seen them as well. But they had found they
+could not restrain their curiosity, and so sailed to Carnglass
+early the following morning, and from the bracken had
+seen Donley pursued by men from the Old House. They
+had debated among themselves whether they ought to reveal
+themselves to Donley and carry him off safely to
+Daldour; but they did not know the right and wrong of the
+feud between Donley and his pursuers, and also they had an
+ancient grudge against all gamekeepers; so they let the
+chase continue, only watching it from a fairly safe distance.
+Two or three times both Donley and the men from the
+Old House seemed to suspect that they were being tracked
+and watched, and to be correspondingly nervous. This
+tickled the fancy of the MacAskivals, especially Dumb
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span>Angus, and, without showing themselves distinctly, they
+dogged the Carnglass men like bogles.</p>
+
+<p>These MacAskivals had seen Donley and Logan together
+on the shore, the night Donley had taken the dinghy. They
+had watched Logan for a part of the way as he followed the
+line of cliffs to the Old House. They had lingered near the
+searching parties that went out of the Old House in pursuit
+of Donley while Logan had been inside. And on one of
+these occasions, three of the MacAskivals—Robert, John,
+and Dumb Angus—had been imprudent. Carruthers and
+Rab, cautiously poking through the bracken near the
+ruined farmhouse where Lagg had been caught, had
+stumbled upon the Daldour men. Carruthers, in the lead
+a few yards, had found himself right in the midst of the
+three MacAskivals, and had shouted in astonishment to
+Rab. Instantly, Malcolm’s two sons had dragged him down
+and begun to bind him, snatching away his gun; they were
+old hands at such fights with keepers. Rab had come running
+up, and Dumb Angus, wearing his sheep-mask and
+Lagg’s clothes, had risen out of the bracken to confront
+him. Turning tail, the shocked and screaming Rab had run
+all the way back to the Old House, now and then firing
+into the bracken, but never hitting the delighted Angus,
+who had followed at a prudent distance. Logan knew the
+rest.</p>
+
+<p>By this time, Malcolm Mor had become convinced that
+something was gravely wrong at the Old House, and was
+bent on helping Mary MacAskival if only he could determine
+what to do. He and the others took Carruthers back
+to Daldour in their boat, at the risk of a prosecution for
+kidnapping, and locked him in a byre, where they fed him
+well and asked him questions quite civilly; but the man
+was so terror-stricken that they could get nothing sensible
+from him. The day after the capture, the MacAskivals spent
+in Daldour asking these fruitless questions of their prisoner.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span>Three hours before dawn on the present day, they
+had sailed once more toward Carnglass, with the intention
+of going straight up to the Old House, if necessary, and
+demanding to see Miss MacAskival.</p>
+
+<p>Then, when almost under the northern headland of
+Carnglass, the MacAskivals had seen flaming against the
+night sky the fire which Logan and the girl had kindled.
+That beacon must be close by St. Merin’s Chapel; and at
+the chapel Malcolm Mor had collected Mary MacAskival’s
+letters, and the Cross of Carnglass had been the point of
+rendezvous when Malcolm, now and then, had met with
+the girl face to face. The odds were that this fire was a sign
+from Mary herself. Mooring the boat, the MacAskivals
+went warily up the cliff, reaching the summit just after
+dawn.</p>
+
+<p>All the time, then, Logan realized, the girl must have
+entertained hope of the MacAskivals’ coming. Why she
+had given him only hints, never speaking out, he could not
+say. In part, perhaps, she had hesitated to speak because
+she feared that, after all, nothing would come of this. And
+in part, likely enough, her pride as The MacAskival had
+prompted her to make the decision herself, without consulting
+even the man she loved. But most of all, Logan suspected,
+a certain lingering schoolgirl love of secrets had
+been at work. From the time Carruthers was missed and
+Rab ran shrieking into the Old House, Mary MacAskival
+must have been sure that the MacAskivals of Daldour were
+in the island. Her only chance of finding them hurriedly
+if they were in the island the next night, or of attracting
+their attention away in Daldour or out at sea, was to light
+the beacon, whatever the risk of attracting Jackman’s
+notice. That act had saved Logan, but not yet Mary herself.</p>
+
+<p>Well, Malcolm Mor and the others had got their heads
+over the summit of the sea-cliff just as Logan had been
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span>fighting with Jackman and his men at the door of the
+broch. The men of Daldour had crouched behind the
+tumbling drystone wall at the brink of the cliff, unnoticed
+by Jackman’s gang during the scuffle. In that moment,
+Malcolm had sent his nephew Kenneth scurrying stealthily
+round the kirkyard wall and down the brae, to create a diversion.
+And Kenneth, seeing two more of Jackman’s men
+in the valley below, had fired on them to draw Jackman’s
+party off at the time Logan and Mary MacAskival were held
+prisoners in the graveyard and the chapel. When Malcolm
+had watched the girl led away on a rope, he was ready to
+fight, law or no law. So he and the others had surrounded
+St. Merin’s Chapel, stunned Powert, and discovered, to
+their astonishment, the betrothed of Mary MacAskival.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Logan,” said old Malcolm Mor, apparently quite
+confident of the issue of the fight that was coming, “when
+Carnglass is the lady’s and yours to do with as you will,
+Dumb Angus would be a good gardener for you. It is a
+keeper that I myself would rather be. Dumb Angus is wise
+with animals and plants”—here he patted Angus approvingly
+on a burly shoulder—“and he would keep you always
+laughing.”</p>
+
+<p>Dumb Angus had put the animal-mask back into his bag.
+He also had slung over his shoulder, on a strap, the wooden
+spade that Logan had seen thrust into the earth in the
+chapel; Angus had forgotten it there when he dug Lagg’s
+grave, but now had retrieved it as the only weapon ready
+to his hand. The wearing of such masks, Malcolm had remarked,
+was common among the few remaining MacAskival
+children, in Daldour and formerly in Carnglass,
+about Hallowe’en. Covered by that dead animal face,
+Angus had looked mightily like the picture of the Firgower
+on the ceiling of Jackman’s study in the old tower.
+Whether this custom was some dim survival of a practice
+older than the Christian rites at the Cross of Carnglass,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span>Logan could not tell. It might have been that the dead
+Pictish chiefs of Carnglass had worn such masks in heathen
+times, at ceremonies in the chamber within the rock beneath
+the Old House, or by the great broch on the cliff,
+the Pict’s House. Be this as it might, the horrid false face
+that was Angus’s delight, like so much else in Carnglass
+and Daldour, came as the last faint echo of an old Gaelic
+song.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>All that long afternoon Logan lay in wait hidden by the
+fir trees, outwardly calm to hearten the MacAskivals, inwardly
+in torment at Mary MacAskival’s danger within the
+Old House. As the sun began to set, he dispatched the boy
+to Kenneth and John, still sniping on the landward side
+of the Old House, with the word that they were to join him
+under the trees close to the gate of the Victorian block,
+the moment it was fairly dark.</p>
+
+<p>When the light was almost gone, Malcolm and Angus
+harnessed the Barra horses—which had been tethered behind
+the New House—to the straw-loaded farm cart. The
+long ladder was carried to the edge of the plantation; the
+run with it to the first-story windows of the Victorian wing
+would be very risky, even if Logan’s whole plan went
+smoothly, but the thing was possible. Climbing up the
+straw, the boy poured the tins of paraffin over the loaded
+cart. Angus crept under the cart, to urge on the horses so
+far as they dared use them. Kenneth, John, and Robert
+were to be stationed behind the cart. When the cart had
+been drawn to the edge of the trees, the horses must be cut
+out of their harness, and the men, keeping their heads
+down, must push the cart the remaining distance across
+naked rock to the gate of the Old House.</p>
+
+<p>Malcolm Mor, Malcolm Gille, and Logan himself took
+position at the edge of the trees, prone, with guns ready to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span>fire into the windows above the gate. These movements
+seem to have attracted attention from whomever was on
+duty at those windows, for one shot was fired from the Old
+House. But Logan’s men did not reply, and as the dark
+descended, the great gray bulk of the castle of the MacAskivals
+lay still and ominous, with not one light showing.
+Now, Mary, Hugh Logan thought, I’ll go to you. The
+MacAskivals beside him knew what they had to do, and
+none of them had shown much sign of fear.</p>
+
+<p>The cart would be set afire against the gate, and Logan
+and the two Malcolms would blaze away at the adjacent
+windows, as if the assault were to come there. That was,
+after all, a venerable Highland and Island military device,
+especially beloved by Rob Roy; and though if the cart
+burned well it might char through the gate, there was no
+danger of the great house, which was all stone, catching
+fire. But Logan did not intend really to rush the gate. The
+true attack would be on the flank, around the corner:
+while the attention of the defenders was concentrated on
+the gate, Logan and his men would carry the ladder to the
+windows of the landward side and break in, if they could.
+And then, presumably, there would be shooting within
+the house; and the odds were not in Logan’s favor. But
+this was the best he could do. It was all he could do for
+Mary MacAskival, and it might be too late.</p>
+
+<p>Now the cart had been pulled by the horses to the edge
+of the trees. Someone inside the house must have heard
+the jingle of harness and the whinnying of horses, for a
+shot fired at a venture passed through the branches above
+their heads. “Now, Kenneth MacAskival, Angus!” Logan
+said. They cut the horses out of the harness, and four men
+commenced, shoving with all their strength, to run with
+the cart across the little plateau of rock to the door of the
+Old House. As yet, the straw was not alight, for they would
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span>need the advantage of darkness so long as they could
+keep it.</p>
+
+<p>Into the quiet night came a hoarse shout of alarm from
+the house: Royall’s voice, Logan thought in that instant.
+Two rifles fired at the cart, and then a third. Logan and his
+companions fired as fast as they could into the windows
+above the gate, and Logan heard a man scream. Still the
+cart ran on, and then crashed into the gate itself. The riflemen
+in the house were firing straight down into the cart
+now, and three of the MacAskivals ran out from behind
+it, leaping and rolling for the shelter of the trees; Logan
+and the Malcolms covered them with the best barrage they
+could contrive. That left Dumb Angus under the cart.</p>
+
+<p>Logan had given Angus careful instructions, through
+Malcolm Mor. Angus had been handed a length of charred
+rope, and a supply of matches. Crouching under the cart,
+he was to light the frayed rope, throw it into the straw, and
+run for it. For Angus was very quick of body. Now Logan
+saw a tiny flame spring up beneath the cart; it grew; still
+Angus lingered. Next a flaming coil was flung upon the dry
+straw, which caught. Two or three minutes passed, the
+firing from the house—were there only two rifles now?—sporadic.
+Then a mass of flame roared up from the cart,
+kindling the lumber among the straw also, and the light
+from it shown fiercely across the empty windows of the
+façade. Angus scooted from under the cart and down
+across the rock, Logan and the others firing to cover him;
+but there was no answer from the windows by the gate.</p>
+
+<p>Now for the worst part. John MacAskival was useless,
+shot in one arm, and dazed with shock; Logan flung his
+gun to the boy, telling him to fire at will, for three minutes,
+into the windows by the gate; the boy was utterly delighted.
+The rest of them, seizing the ladder, swung out of
+the plantation toward the right, veered round the corner of
+the Victorian block, and set the ladder against a first-story
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span>window, Angus holding it firm at the bottom. Someone
+fired a shot from above them, but no one seemed to be hit.</p>
+
+<p>Logan leaped up, the others behind him, and in two
+seconds was smashing out of the window-frame the shattered
+remnants of the plate glass, using his gun-butt, and
+expecting any moment to get a bullet in his chest. But the
+room within was silent. He flung himself into that room,
+and the four MacAskivals were at his heels. And now, indeed,
+there were gunshots; but they came from deep within
+the house, and no one opposed Logan as they burst into
+the corridor.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">15</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Someone yelled in the corridor as Logan entered. But it was
+only a little paper-white man, dragging a rifle feebly as if
+it were a ball and chain: Tompkins. At sight of Logan, the
+butler dropped the rifle altogether, falling to his knees, and
+cried, “O Gawd! Mr. Logan, sir, don’t ’urt me, don’t! I’m
+your slaive, Mr. Logan! O Gawd, Jackman’s mad, and
+they’re murderin’ heach hother below stairs.”</p>
+
+<p>Clutching at Logan’s legs, Tompkins babbled on as to
+how he was only an honest butler and part-time burglar,
+unaccustomed to killing. Logan jerked him to his feet and
+forced him in the direction of the gunfire within the house.
+“In the billiard room, Mr. Logan, sir!”</p>
+
+<p>Urging Tompkins before them, Logan and the MacAskivals
+ran to the end of the passage, rounded the corner
+to the left, and came to the door of the billiard room. Dead
+or dying, Royall lay face down across the threshold. Reckless,
+Logan strode over him. The big room, with its long
+windows looking toward the harbor, had three more men
+in it. One was Anderson, shot through the belly, writhing
+with his back against a leg of the billiard table. One was
+Rab, sprawled in the middle of the red Victorian carpet, a
+bullet hole between his eyes. The third was a man Logan
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span>had not seen before, lying on a sofa, his eyes bandaged,
+sightless, moaning in fear—Till, of course, the burned boatman.
+Where was Jackman? Two or three more shots, in
+quick succession, sounded within the house, somewhere
+below.</p>
+
+<p>“Tompkins, tell me where Jackman’s gone, or I’ll finish
+you,” Logan said. The butler, stammering and choking,
+could only point toward the cellars below. Malcolm Mor
+ran in.</p>
+
+<p>“In the room above the gate,” Malcolm said—he slipped
+here into Gaelic, and with difficulty found his English
+again—“there is a man with long hair, like a gypsy, and he
+has been shot through the shoulder, and can do no harm.”
+That would be Niven; and that left Jackman and Simmons
+and Ferd Caggia. And Mary, Mary.</p>
+
+<p>“Tompkins,” Logan said, taking the man by the throat,
+“show me where the crypt with the explosives is.” The butler
+reeled in Logan’s grip along the passage, and down a
+flight of stairs, and then pointed to an open doorway, from
+which stone steps led into shadows. Angus was behind
+Logan; the other MacAskivals were poking into the rooms.</p>
+
+<p>Releasing Tompkins, Logan went down those steps to a
+little landing, and started to turn to the remaining flight
+that would take him to the crypt. A rifle cracked, and the
+bullet ricocheted from the wall. Logan flung himself back,
+nearly upsetting Angus.</p>
+
+<p>“Jackman,” Logan called down, “drop your gun and
+come up, and I’ll promise you a trial. Otherwise we’ll
+promise nothing.”</p>
+
+<p>But it was not Jackman that answered from the crypt.
+“Ah! Meester Logan, that is you?” The voice was rather
+faint.</p>
+
+<p>“Who’s there?”</p>
+
+<p>“Fernando Caggia, your fren’. Meester Logan, you owe
+me a pardon for what I do.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span>“Drop your gun, Caggia, and come up.”</p>
+
+<p>A rifle was flung to the foot of the stairs. “Meester
+Logan, I can not come up, for Dr. Jackman, he shoot me
+twice. But I save you.”</p>
+
+<p>Logan leaped down those stairs. A barricade of boxes and
+chairs stood before a little iron door, and between door and
+barricade lay Caggia, covered with blood. “In this room,”
+Caggia said, trying to grin, “is the gelignite. Dr. Jackman,
+he try to reach it, but I, Fernando Caggia, do not let him.
+He shoot, I shoot, he shoot. I hit him once.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where is he?”</p>
+
+<p>Caggia gave a weak shrug. “One minute ago, he runs.”</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Angus to watch the iron door, Logan dashed
+back up the stairs, and at the top Malcolm met him. “We
+can not find that man,” Malcolm said. “Will he be in the
+old tower?”</p>
+
+<p>“Mary?”</p>
+
+<p>“The door of the room of Lady MacAskival is locked, but
+there are people inside.”</p>
+
+<p>Now the boy had joined them, and as they ran into the
+Renaissance building, Kenneth and Robert came out of a
+passage and followed. They were at the door of the room
+which was hung with Spanish leather. Logan tried the knob
+fiercely; it would not turn. He smashed at the door with his
+rifle-butt, using all the strength that was in him, and it
+burst inward. Someone leaped for him. “Hugh, Hugh!”
+Before them all, Mary MacAskival covered him with kisses.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Later, from Mary and Tompkins and Till, Logan got an
+understanding of what had passed within the Old House
+since morning. Wild with fury and bewilderment, Jackman
+had dragged her back to the Old House from the
+chapel, the three men with him as much afraid of their
+master as of the shadowy armed men whom Anderson had
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span>seen before the chapel. According to Anderson, there were
+twelve or fifteen of them, armed to the teeth. At the
+moment of his triumph, of his taking of Logan, suddenly
+Jackman had been undone. There was no way out.</p>
+
+<p>Like a man in the grip of nightmare, Jackman scarcely
+could speak. For a few moments, just after they had got
+back within the shelter of the Old House, a flash of his old
+power returned to him. Seeing Jackman bemused, Anderson
+and Rab and Caggia and Simmons made for the girl:
+they would beat out of her the truth about those armed
+men by the chapel. But turning on them, “like Rumpelstiltskin
+again,” Jackman broke that mutiny, and hurried
+Mary MacAskival through the passages to her aunt’s room.
+Thrusting her inside, he gave her a long look. “Well,”
+Jackman said, passing his hand across his forehead, “I wish
+I had known you long ago. Now you are going to die. We
+all are about to die.” He went out, locking the door behind
+him.</p>
+
+<p>All that day, Mary knelt praying in the room hung with
+Spanish leather. Lady MacAskival, wasted beyond belief,
+lay motionless in her big bed, not seeming to hear the
+bullets striking the walls in the rooms across the gallery.
+Old Agnes sobbed in a corner. From the windows of this
+room, Mary could see only the harbor, with the burned
+yacht, and the empty sea beyond. And she prayed for Hugh
+Logan and for Carnglass.</p>
+
+<p>It was Tompkins who told Logan much of what followed.
+Jackman, uncertain in movements and speech, as if
+half paralyzed, stationed Anderson, Rab, and Caggia in
+rooms on the landward side of the Old House, to reply to
+the sniping from the bracken. Simmons he put into the
+study, guarding the door of the old tower. He ordered
+Niven and Tompkins to duty in the rooms above the gate.
+For a time he went himself to the roof of the old tower
+and fired at the riflemen slinking among the distant rocks
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span>and heather and bracken; but all this was done as if he
+were sleep-walking. Then he went down to the billiard
+room, which was safe from gunfire, and sat at a table with
+his head in his hands. Royall tried to talk with him, but
+Jackman would not reply. Thereafter Royall conducted
+the defense, so far as there was any organized resistance.</p>
+
+<p>Caggia, who had gone below stairs to get the men food,
+did not reappear. Rab and Anderson, driven from the landward
+rooms by the sniping, got at the rum. They drank it
+in the billiard room where Jackman sat, and cursed at
+Jackman, and Jackman did not answer. And the hours
+passed.</p>
+
+<p>Royall, left alone in the landward rooms, had his cheek
+laid open by a splinter of glass, but he kept on firing. When
+the sniping ceased on that side, he went to the billiard room
+and again tried to rouse Jackman. At gun-point, Royall
+ordered Rab up to the room over the gate, to reinforce
+Niven and Tompkins. Anderson went below stairs, and
+Tompkins heard him crying defiantly to Royall—something
+about explosives.</p>
+
+<p>When the attack on the gate came, and the cart was burning
+under the windows, Niven was hit by a bullet. In panic,
+Rab fled to the billiard room, screaming out, “The hoose!
+They’re burnin’ a’ the hoose!” Royall and Anderson hurried
+in. This was told to Logan by the blinded boatman
+Till, who had lain helpless during the billiard-room fight.</p>
+
+<p>“O aye, we’re done!” Anderson roared. “Gie it ower,
+Jackman, we’ve had it!”</p>
+
+<p>Then Jackman rose from his chair. “Royall,” Jackman
+said, “keep the men here.”</p>
+
+<p>“Gude God,” Till heard Anderson say, “the auld de’il’s
+for the explosives! Jackman, damn ye, dinna open that
+door.”</p>
+
+<p>“Rab,” cried Royall, “drop your gun.” Shooting began
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span>then, Till cowering on the sofa. There must have been
+four or five shots, and after them running steps. Till could
+hear Anderson groaning and cursing. After that, Logan and
+his men came.</p>
+
+<p>Edmund Jackman had made for the cellars and the
+gelignite. Down there, Ferd Caggia crouched behind a little
+barricade in front of the iron door; for Ferd had remembered
+Logan’s words about Jackman’s madness, and
+he, cat-like, had been watching Jackman. “Dr. Jackman,”
+Caggia had said, “you don’ blow me to hell.” Jackman had
+fired at him promptly, and had hit him, but Caggia had
+fired back. After a minute’s exchange of shots, the Maltese,
+wounded, still gripped his rifle behind the boxes and
+chairs. Jackman had leaped back up the stairs and was
+gone through the passages. Even his try for annihilation
+had failed.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Simmons they found still in the study in the old tower,
+and took him without difficulty. But Dr. Edmund Jackman
+they did not find. The door to the garden was open,
+and Simmons said that from the window he had seen Jackman
+go over the garden wall, favoring one side as if he
+were slightly wounded.</p>
+
+<p>“I think, Mr. Logan,” Malcolm Mor said, “that because
+he is a clever man, he will have gone to look for our boat
+below the chapel.”</p>
+
+<p>Yes, he would have, Logan thought. In the course of the
+fight, Jackman must have recognized some of the attackers,
+perhaps old Malcolm; and, having seen them that morning
+near the chapel, he would guess that the boat was below
+those cliffs. That the wounded man could find his way
+down, Logan doubted. Yet so long as Jackman was at large,
+no one in Carnglass could be safe. The hound had become
+the fox now.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span>“Mary,” Hugh Logan said, “I must be after him.” She
+had an arm around him.</p>
+
+<p>“I know the island best,” she told him, “and from this
+night I am going to stay with you always, Hugh.”</p>
+
+<p>He looked down at her. “And who would guard the Old
+House, then, and do something for the men who’ve been
+shot, and put out the embers at the gate, and give the
+MacAskivals something to eat?”</p>
+
+<p>Knowing that this was no moment for argument if Jackman
+were bound for the boat, Mary MacAskival looked
+proudly into Logan’s eyes. “Then take Malcolm Mor,” she
+said, “for he will know where to search, and I will send
+other men so soon as I can.” The MacAskivals, having
+locked Simmons and Tompkins in a cellar, crowded round
+her deferentially for instructions. “Dr. Jackman shot my
+dog, Hugh, to hurt me. But do you come back to me, forever.”</p>
+
+<p>One last kiss, and then he left her in her strength and
+beauty, as the tears were starting down her cheeks. “Before
+sunrise, Mary girl, I’ll be with you.” Logan and Malcolm
+Mor went through the garden—for the great gate still was a
+charred and smoking hulk—and over the garden dyke below
+the old tower, the way that Jackman had gone, and they
+strode toward St. Merin’s Chapel. Now and then Logan
+stumbled: he had been without sleep for twenty-four hours.</p>
+
+<p>“If he can go down the cliffs,” Malcolm Mor panted,
+“then the man with the third eye is more than man.”
+Malcolm was a wonder: he had been on his feet nearly as
+long as Logan, and he was past seventy.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond Cailleach, they flung themselves down for a brief
+rest. Their rifles seemed immensely heavy. Carnglass, in its
+nocturnal beauty, was at peace. The bleating of sheep, disturbed
+by the men, echoed from the heights where the
+chapel stood. “Malcolm Mor,” Logan said, “I believe you
+think Jackman really is something not human.”</p>
+
+<p>“It would be well to have silver bullets for our guns.”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span>The old man muttered something in Gaelic. “But devil
+or not, he will have climbed up there.” Malcolm Mor
+gestured toward the headland. They took up their guns
+again, and in less than an hour made out the shape of St.
+Merin’s Chapel, and of the Pict’s House, the Firgower’s
+House, beyond it.</p>
+
+<p>“If he has tried the path here,” Malcolm said very low,
+“he will not reach the shore alive, not knowing the way,
+and having a bullet in him.” Both Logan and Malcolm
+Mor moved slowly now; Logan doubted whether even
+Malcolm, while so weary, could descend this precipice, and
+he was certain that he himself could not. They climbed
+over the ruinous drystone wall close by the broch; from
+the dyke to the crumbling cliff-edge was less than a yard.
+A thousand feet and more below, the ocean heaved northward
+to the pole.</p>
+
+<p>Then something rose from behind the dyke. Malcolm
+Mor tried to bring up his rifle, but a bullet struck the
+stock and sent the gun spinning from his hand. Logan had
+his rifle over his shoulder. He pulled at it desperately.
+And Jackman shot Hugh Logan.</p>
+
+<p>Logan fell backward, and his head struck nothing at all,
+for he lay right on the cliff’s edge, with only infinite space
+at the back of his head. There was a fierce pain in his right
+thigh, where the bullet from the little pistol had caught
+him. Edmund Jackman stepped over the broken dyke and
+stood only seven or eight feet distant from them, his left
+arm pressed hard against his side. The moonlight was full
+on Jackman’s face, and the eyes were slits, and the face was
+that of a man lost in a nightmare. Malcolm Mor stood
+fixed by the spot where Logan lay.</p>
+
+<p>“Young Askival and Old Askival,” Jackman said. “I have
+the two of you.” He pointed the pistol at Malcolm. “Put
+him over the edge, Old Askival.”</p>
+
+<p>Malcolm Mor bent slowly over Logan. He took Logan by
+the shoulders, and drew him back from that terrible cliff-lip,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span>and propped him against a stone fallen from the dyke.
+Silent, Malcolm stared at Jackman. I am done, Logan
+thought, but if I can catch his ankle, Jackman may go over
+the edge with me, and Mary will be safe.</p>
+
+<p>“Both of you at once, then,” Jackman said dismally. “Old
+Askival and Young Askival.” He took aim at Malcolm.
+Hugh Logan tried to hurl himself forward, but his smashed
+thighbone failed him.</p>
+
+<p>There came, at that instant, a kind of gurgling cry, and a
+sound of running, of something hurrying right along the
+cliff’s edge, at Jackman’s back. Edmund Jackman turned
+his head. Malcolm and Logan and Jackman saw all at once
+the thing that was coming.</p>
+
+<p>It was a burly man in tattered corduroy breeches, a long
+green jacket, and a yellow waistcoat, with a porkpie hat on
+his head, his arms flapping as he ran. He mouthed as he
+came, but what noise he uttered was not speech. And his
+face was a dead mask, and not human. The thing made
+straight for Jackman.</p>
+
+<p>Mary had sent Angus after Logan. And, with the heroism
+of children and simpletons, Angus sought to put his body
+between Logan and his enemy.</p>
+
+<p>But what Edmund Jackman saw in that dreadful masked
+figure, Logan knew: the shape of his victim, and the face
+of his nightmare horror. With a moan, Jackman turned to
+run. He took one bound in that high place, and upon the
+brink the heather gave beneath him; and where Lagg had
+gone down, there Jackman fell.</p>
+
+<p>Though they say that the ocean yields up all its dead
+upon the skerries of Carnglass, no man found Jackman
+after. As from the cliff-head at Gadara, the unclean spirit
+was cast into the sea. And Logan, with Malcolm Mor kneeling
+beside him and Dumb Angus shivering with fright
+against the dyke, heard no sound from below but the
+suck of the tide upon the weary stones.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<div class="transnote">
+<p class="ph1">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p>
+
+<p>Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.</p>
+
+<p>Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.</p>
+
+<p>Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.</p>
+
+<p>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p>
+
+<p>Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p>
+</div></div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77800 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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author	www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org>	2026-01-28 04:21:08 -0800
committer	www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org>	2026-01-28 04:21:08 -0800
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