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 shell 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 assailants 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,