The candle had burned itself out when he awoke. The early rose of a coming day was looking in at the top of the blinds. He heard the rattle of pebbles tossed against the half-closed wooden shutter. He opened, and there, pale as a spectre, stood Eben McClure. His teeth were chattering, so Stair made haste to let him in. He gave him a strong "four fingers"
dram of Angouleme brandy, before making him roll himself up in a blanket and lie down in his warm place. Stair would be cook for one morning.
He did not disturb the sleeper when Patsy came down, smiling and happy, with another day of peaceful pleasure before her in their Rath or Isle of the Fairy Folk.
"Eben McClure needed to send a message to his uncle," he said lightly, "so he swam across with Whitefoot, and being chilled when he got back, I gave him a dose of spirits and made him go to bed."
Patsy made no remark. She had accepted Eben as a fixture in their _menage_, and took no further concern about the matter. But Stair looked out many times at the green trenches closing in the land entrance to the isle, and even as he looked, it seemed that during the night the parallels had crept down a little nearer to high-water mark.
If so, Eben the Spy was right, and for Patsy"s sake their precautions had not been taken a moment too soon. The sooner the _Good Intent_ was on the spot the better.
CHAPTER XLI
THE BATTLE OF THE CAUSEWAY
Patsy was a prison-breaker. She had not only resisted but defied lawful authority. She had broken "with the armed hand" into one of his Majesty"s defended prisons. She had taken out men awaiting trial for capital offences, and to finish all neatly, she or her followers had burned the Castle of Stranryan.
As for Stair, the counts on his indictment were as the sands by the seash.o.r.e for mult.i.tude. There was no doubt that the sappers would earn the thanks of their superiors, of the whole Board of Excise and of the Office of Recruitment for the two services by handing over the two who had so long terrorized the best efforts of their agents in Galloway.
Eben, as a thief and a traitor to his salt, would be an additional prize. Surely all this was worth working and waiting for. So at least thought Colonel Laurence, who had patiently followed them westwards till he came across the tracks of Eben McClure when he prepared to swim across to the island from the point of Orraland.
The days went slowly for Eben and Stair, who were waiting for the neaps and the coming of the _Good Intent_. They sped fast for Patsy, who now ran unashamed about the island with Stair"s hand in hers. Never had there been such a companion. Never had she been so happy.
What troubled the men most was the failure of Whitefoot to return. To account for this, Stair had invented a score of reasons, in none of which he believed himself. It was now Thursday and the day after next, or more exactly during the early morning of Friday, they would see the middle of the neaps. If at all the ridge would be fully uncovered then, and in the absence of a strong south-wester (which now seemed unlikely), the track might remain uncovered for a couple of hours.
All that day there had been unusual semaph.o.r.e signallings and wavings of flags on the heights facing the island; but Stair, anxious to keep Patsy ignorant and happy as long as possible, still hesitated to tell her.
They had gone down to Leg-o"-Mutton Bay where the sh.e.l.ls they called by that name were to be found. An absolute silence reigned as they stood together looking out towards the sunset playing on Screel and Ben Gairn, till, with the tail of his eye Stair saw something moving along the ridge above them.
He turned swiftly, and there was Whitefoot, but a Whitefoot who dragged one foot painfully after the other, yet who, at sight of his master, wagged his great tail and gave vent to his old "_Aaa-uch_" of joy. The dog tried to bound towards them, but he had overestimated his strength.
He toppled forward, whereupon Stair ran to him and carried him down in his arms. There was a bullet-hole behind his shoulder, but in spite of that the dog had swam the strait to find his master.
Stair laid him down and Patsy hastily tore off the flounce of a dress to bind about the wound. Stair took off his coat and wrapped Whitefoot in it. But he was not easy, shaking his head and turning it about to indicate that he had some message which must be delivered immediately.
To quiet him, Stair undid the collar and pulled out a little square missive.
_"The "Good Intent" will be with you and send a boat Friday morning!"_
As soon as Whitefoot saw the white half sheet in Stair"s hands, he crawled a little farther up on his master"s knees. His beautiful eyes, that were fixed on Stair"s face, gradually blurred and grew filmy. He moved his head restlessly as he was wont to do when seeking a caress.
Stair"s hand was laid on his head to soothe him. Whitefoot stretched himself out on his master"s knees for the last time with the long, contented sigh of one about to sleep, and shut his beautiful eyes for ever. Only his tongue continued to lick his master"s hand for another moment or two.
"Oh, Stair," cried Patsy, "how he loved you--he died for you!"
"No, dear," said Stair softly, "for us!"
The next was a day of anxious tension. The long sinuous snakeback of the sh.e.l.l-ridge showed black all its length at the bottom of the afternoon ebb, but contrary to their expectations nothing moved in the camp of the enemy. It was evident that they were waiting for the early morning. The water would be at its lowest shortly after three, when the rush could be made with sufficient light to see. This was the more necessary as there were many quicksands to either side and in one or two places the ridge was not quite continuous. The winter storms altered it, sometimes by many feet, leaving isolated humps and mounds with quicksands about them, which might easily trap the unwary. The enemy was evidently not going to take any risks.
After Whitefoot"s death Stair had perforce to tell everything to Patsy.
It was wonderful how it strengthened and reaffirmed her.
"Why did you not tell me?" she said. "Why did you take counsel with everybody but me?"
"I did not," said Stair, smiling at her. "It was Eben who discovered everything, and then came and asked me. I thought that there might be nothing in it, and it was not till I was perfectly sure, that I saw the necessity of disturbing you."
"You will never treat me as a child again?" she had her hands on his sleeve now, and was looking up into his face.
"No," he said, "I know too well who carried me off here, breaking prisons to get me--and has not known what to do with me since!"
"Oh, don"t say that, Stair. I love you very dearly--more than I thought possible."
He gazed at her for a moment, saw that his time had not yet come, and then gently patted her cheek, so gently that she did not resent the caress. All that day they watched the curving trenches from a little angle of the tower from which a rifle could be brought to bear on the sh.e.l.l causeway. That afternoon seemed everlasting. It was a clear, still twilight, and they did not dine till nearly midnight. If the _Good Intent_ were to send a boat it would be to the back of the island which the tide never left. Indeed, Leg-o"-Mutton Bay was the only spot where a boat could land. There was always deep water there.
At one o"clock Stair saw a ship"s lights very far away. It was very doubtful, even supposing that she were the _Good Intent_, that she could be there in time. But in the crucial hours, Eben the Spy proved himself wonderfully helpful and encouraging. His Uncle Kennedy never promised without keeping his promise. There might be a bit of a skirmish as the men were coming over, but he could warrant that they would be safe on board along with Captain Penman before ever a soldier set his foot on the island. On this he would pledge his life.
In view of all the facts this was not very convincing, but all the same it was distinctly cheering.
The blank night wore to a kind of grey over the sea, though the land was still in deep shadow. Across the grey ran the coils of the black causeway. The light was coming fast now and for the first time Eben lost his equanimity of spirit. He was in haste to have them gone out of the Tower.
"Take Mrs. Stair down to the landing-place, sir," he pleaded, "take her to the little cove where the boat will come in. They may be on the sh.e.l.l-track any time now."
And as he spoke both Stair and he heard and recognized the loud rattle of a ship"s anchor chain.
"There," he cried, "off with you! There is not a moment to lose. Ah, there they come. But that is only the first of them. I can easily stop these. Out at the back door! The wicket in the wall is open. Keep on through the hollow and you will find the boat ready. Do not wait for me.
I have my own life arranged for. Do not fear for me!"
He hustled them out with a haste which left them no time for explanation. The men who were hastening across the causeway had less than a mile to run. It was, however, by no means easy going, and it would take them at least ten good minutes. Stair took Patsy down to the Sh.e.l.l Bay by the safest path, and even before they reached it they could hear the beginning of a fusillade in their rear. The boat from the _Good Intent_ was already on the way, rowed by four st.u.r.dy seamen, yet it seemed to them both as though she would never arrive. They looked behind them, expecting every moment to see a rush of men come at them over the crown of the island.
Stair could stand it no longer. He must see what was going on, and he mounted the rough sides of the little heathery knoll called quaintly Ben Rathan. Patsy would not be left behind and he found her at his side. She could, in fact, have been there long before him.
But what they saw struck them dumb.
In a rough trench at the island end of the sh.e.l.l causeway, and quite clearly evident beneath them in the young light of the morning, were three figures, two of them obviously dummies, but with guns at their shoulders and hats on their shapeless heads. Bounding hither and thither, now along the top of the trench, now rising breast-high to fire was a man so like Stair Garland that Patsy had to look again at the blond giant beside her to make sure. Then they understood.
It was the ex-spy clad in the cast-off suit which Stair had taken off the first morning after their coming to the island. Stair"s well-known bonnet with its tall feather was on Eben"s head, and after every shot or two, he waved it in the air and shouted to the a.s.sailants to come on.
The half-dozen sappers who had tried the first rush were now lying flat behind stones, and one lay bunched up as if wounded. The false Stair ran to and fro firing the muskets over the shoulders of his auxiliary potato-sacks. Then he shouted again defiantly, and leaping to the cliff"s edge where he stood clear against the sky-line, he fired again.
Patsy could see the mud-and-water spurt up from where the bullet struck.
From the mainland a score more of men took the pathway, keeping as widely apart as possible. These were Colonel Laurence and his first reinforcement. Up went the feathered bonnet in the air as Eben dived back into his rude trench.
The sailors kept calling now from the boat, eagerly, imperiously. It was necessary for them to return. Patsy was placed on board and Stair wished to go back and help to defend the island. He could not leave Eben McClure thus. But Patsy was out on the shingle in a moment. If Stair went back so should she. Eben McClure had given her a letter which, he said, would explain everything. It was only to be read aboard the _Good Intent_ after the anchor was up.
So they put about and in a few minutes they were having their hands wrung off by Captain Penman on his own quarter-deck.
"I am glad to see you," he cried. "I thought I heard firing. They must have been pretty close--not much sea-way in your last tack, eh? But come below. You will find everything in my cabin. The owner said most particular that it was to be made all spick and span for you. Honoured I am to see you again on my ship, Mistress Garland!"
As they turned the corner of Isle Rathan, Stair and Patsy could see that the sham defences had been carried with a rush, and that something lay very still behind the hastily-dug trench. Patsy"s keen eyes noted that it was still wearing Stair"s bonnet.
She turned and ran below weeping bitterly.