the mountain pass through
which ran their further road. Here, at dusk, they dismounted in the
inn-yard, about them a staring, commenting crowd. Presently they went
to supper together. The Englishman meant to tarry a while in this town
to observe certain antiquities. He might stay a week. He urged that
his companion of the last few days stay as well. But the laird of
Glenfernie could not.

"I have an errand, you see. I am to find something. I must go on."

"Two days, then. You say yourself that your horses need rest."

"They do.... I will stay two days."

But when morning came the secretary and the physician alone appeared
at table. The nobleman lay abed with a touch of fever. The physician
reported that the trouble was slight--fatigue and a chill taken. A
couple of days' repose and his lordship would be himself again.

Glenfernie walked through the town. Returning to the inn, he found
that the Englishman had asked for him. For an hour or two he talked or
listened, sitting by the nobleman's bed. Leaving him at last, he went
below to the inn's great room, half open to the courtyard and all the
come and go of the place. It was late afternoon. He sat by a table
placed before the window, and the river seemed to flow by him, and now
he looked at it from a rocky island, and now he looked elsewhere. The
room grew ruddy from the setting sun. An inn servant entered and
busied himself about the place. After him came an aged woman, half
gipsy, it seemed. She approached the seat by the window. Her worn
mantle, her wide sleeve, seemed to touch the deep stone sill. She was
gone like a moth. Glenfernie's eye discovered a folded paper lying in
the window. It had not been there five minutes earlier. Now it lay
before him like a sudden outgrowth from the stone. He put out a hand
and took it up. The woman was gone, the serving-man was gone. Outside
flowed the river. Alexander unfolded the paper. It was addressed to
_Senor Nobody_. It lay upon his knee, and it was Ian's hand. His lips
moved, his vision blurred. Then came steadiness and he read.

What he read was a statement, at once tense and whimsical, of the
predicament of the writer. The latter, recognizing the confusion of
thought among his captors, wrote because he must, but did not truly
expect any aid from Senor Nobody. The writing would, however, prolong
life for two days, perhaps for three. If at the end of that time
ransom were not forthcoming death would forthcome. Release