I had meant to keep the last cartridge for you..."
"Dear Kay," she breathed close to his cheek.
Presently he was obliged to fire again, but remained uncertain as to his luck in the raging storm of lead that followed.
"I guess you better go, Yellow-hair," he whispered. "My guns are about all in."
"Try to hold them off. I"ll come back. Of course you understand I"m not going for myself, Kay, I"m going for ammunition."
"What!"
"What did you suppose?" she asked curtly.
At that he blazed up: "If you can win through Isla Water you stay on the other side and telephone Glenark! Do you hear? I"m all right.
It"s--it"s none of your business how I end this--"
"Kay?"
"What?"
"Turn your back. I"m undressing."
He heard her stripping, kneeling in the ferns behind him,--heard the rip of delicate fabric and the rustle of silk-lined garments falling.
Presently she said: "Can I be noticed if I slip down through the bushes to the water?"
"O G.o.d," he whispered, "be careful, Yellow-hair. ... No, the man in the boat is keeping his distance. He"ll never see you. Don"t splash when you take the water. Swim like an otter, under, until you"re well out. ... You"re young and st.u.r.dy, slim as you are. You"ll get through if the chill of Isla doesn"t paralyse you. But you"ve got to do it, Yellow-hair; you"ve GOT to do it."
"Yes. Hold them off, Kay. I"ll be back. Hold them off, dear Kay.
Will you?"
"I"ll try, Yellow-hair.... Good luck! Don"t try to come back!"
"Good luck," she whispered close to his ear; and, for a second he felt her slim young hands on his shoulders--lightly--the very ghost of contact. That was all. He waited a hundred years. Then another.
Then, his weapons levelled, listening, he cast a quick glance backward. At the foot of the Pulpit a dark ripple lapped the rock.
Nothing there now; nothing in Isla Water save far in the stars"
l.u.s.tre the shadowy boat lying motionless.
Toward dawn they tried to rush the Pulpit. He used a heavy fragment of rock on the first man up, and as his quarry went smashing earthward, a fierce whine burst from the others: "Shot out! All together now!" But his pistol spoke again and they recoiled, growling, disheartened, cursing the false hope that had re-nerved them.
It was his last shot, however. He had a heavy clasp-knife such as salmon-anglers carry. He laid his empty pistols on the rocky ledge.
Very patiently he felt for frost-loosened ma.s.ses of rock, detached them one by one and noiselessly piled them along the ledge.
"It"s odd," he thought to himself: "I"m going to be killed and I don"t care. If Isla got HER, then I"ll see her very soon now, G.o.d willing. But if she wins out--why it is going to be longer waiting....
And I"ve put my mark on the Boche--not as often as I wished--but I"ve marked some of them for what they"ve done to me--and to the world--"
A sound caught his ear. He waited, listening. Had it been a fighting chance in Isla Water he"d have taken it. But the man in the boat!--and to have one"s throat cut--like a deer! No! He"d kill all he could first; he"d die fighting, not fleeing.
He looked at his wrist-watch. Miss Erith had been gone two hours.
That meant that her slender body lay deep, deep in icy Isla.
Now, listening intently, he heard the bracken stirring and something sc.r.a.ping the gorse below. They were coming; they were among the rocks! He straightened up and hurled a great slab of rock down through darkness; heard them scrambling upward still; seized slab after slab and smashed them downward at the flashes as the red flare of their pistols lit up his figure against the sky.
Then, as he hurled the last slab and clutched his short, broad knife, a gasping breath fell on his cheek and a wet and icy little hand thrust a box of clips into his. And there and then The McKay almost died, for it was as if the "Cold Hand of Isla" had touched him. And he stared ahead to see his own wraith.
"Quick!" she panted. "We can hold them, Kay!"
"Yellow-hair! By G.o.d! You bet we can!" he cried with a terrible burst of laughter; and ripped the clips from the box and snapped them in with lightning speed.
Then his pistols vomited vermilion, clearing the rock of vermin; and when two fresh clips were snapped in, the man stood on the Pulpit"s edge, mad for blood, his fierce young eyes searching the blackness about him.
"You dirty rats!" he cried, "come back! Are you leaving your dead in the bracken then?"
There were distant sounds on the moor; nothing stirred nearer.
"Are you coming back?" he shouted, "or must I go after you?"
Suddenly in the night their motor roared. At the same moment, far across the lake, he saw the headlights of other motors glide over Isla Bridge like low-flying stars.
"Yellow-hair!"
There was no sound behind him. He turned.
The fainting girl lay amid her drenched yellow hair in the ferns, partly covered by the clothing which she had drawn over her with her last conscious effort.
It is a long way across Isla Water. And twice across is longer. And "The Cold Hand of Isla" summons the chief of Clan Morhguinn when his time has come to look upon his own wraith face to face. But The Cold Hand of Isla had touched this girl in vain--MOLADH MAIRI!!
"Yellow-hair! Yellow-hair!" he whispered. The roar of rushing motors from Glenark filled his ears. He picked up one of her little hands and chafed it. Then she opened her golden eyes, looked up at him, and a flood of rose dyed her body from brow to ankle.
"It--it is a long way across Isla Water," she stammered. "I"m very tired--Kay!"
"You below there!" shouted McKay. "Are there constables among you?"
"Aye, sir!" came the loud response amid the roar of running engines.
"Then there"ll be whiskey and blankets, I"m thinkin"!" cried McKay.
"Aye, blankets for the dead if there be any!"
"Kick "em into the whinns and bring what ye bring for the living!"
said McKay in a loud, joyous voice. "And if you"ve petrol and speed take the Banff road and be on your way, for the Boche are crawling to cover, and it"s fine running the night! Get on there, ye Glenark beagles! And leave a car behind for me and mine!"
A constable, shining his lantern, came clumping up the Pulpit. McKay s.n.a.t.c.hed the heavy blankets and with one mighty movement swept the girl into them.
Half-conscious she coughed and gasped at the whiskey, then lay very still as McKay lifted her in his arms and strode out under the paling stars of Isla.