ENTS.

Prologue

1. How a Retired Provision Merchant felt the Impulse of Spring.

2. Of Mr. John Heritage and the Difference in Points of View.

3. How Childe Roland and Another came to the Dark tower.

4. Dougal.

5. Of the Princess in the Tower.

6. How Mr. McCunn departed with Relief and returned with Resolution.

7. Sundry Doings in the Mirk.

8. How a Middle-aged Crusader accepted a Challenge.

9. The First Battle of the Cruives.

10. Deals with an Escape and a Journey.

11. Gravity out of Bed.

12. How Mr. McCunn committed an Assault upon an Ally.

13. The Coming of the Danish Brig.

14. The Second Battle of the Cruives.

15. The Gorbals Die-Hards go into Action.

16. In which a Princess leaves a Dark Tower and a Provision Merchant
returns to his Family.

HUNTINGTOWER.

PROLOGUE.

The girl came into the room with a darting movement like a swallow,
looked round her with the same birdlike quickness, and then ran across
the polished floor to where a young man sat on a sofa with one leg laid
along it.

"I have saved you this dance, Quentin," she said, pronouncing the name
with a pretty staccato. "You must be lonely not dancing, so I will sit
with you. What shall we talk about?"

The young man did not answer at once, for his gaze was held by her
face. He had never dreamed that the gawky and rather plain little girl
whom he had romped with long ago in Paris would grow into such a being.
The clean delicate lines of her figure, the exquisite pure colouring of
hair and skin, the charming young arrogance of the eyes--this was
beauty, he reflected, a miracle, a revelation. Her virginal fineness
and her dress, which was the tint of pale fire, gave her the air of a
creature of ice and flame.

"About yourself, please, Saskia," he said. "Are you happy now that you
are a grown-up lady?"

"Happy!" Her voice had a thrill in it like music, frosty music. "The
days are far too short. I grudge the hours when I must sleep. They say
it is sad for me to make my debut in a time of war. But the world is
very kind to me, and after all it is a victorious war for our Russia.
And listen to me, Quentin. To-morrow I am to be allowed to begin
nursing at the Alexander Hospital. What do you think of that?"

The time was January 1916, and the place a room in the great Nirski
Palace. No hint of war, no breath from the snowy streets, entered that
curious chamber where Prince Peter Nirski kept s