er. He should
have taken the second, but I had it shut so he takes the first. Peter
Paterson gave him a wee shove and he fell down the two-three steps into
the cellar, and we turned the key on him. Yon cellar has a grand door
and no windies."

"And Dobson and Leon are at the verandah door? With a light?"

"Thomas Yownie's on duty there. Ye can trust him. Ye'll no fickle
Thomas Yownie."

The next minutes were for Dickson a delirium of excitement not
unpleasantly shot with flashes of doubt and fear. As a child he had
played hide-and-seek, and his memory had always cherished the delights
of the game. But how marvellous to play it thus in a great empty
house, at dark of night, with the heaven filled with tempest, and with
death or wounds as the stakes!

He took refuge in a corner where a tapestry curtain and the side of a
Dutch awmry gave him shelter, and from where he stood he could see the
garden-room and the beginning of the tiled passage which led to the
verandah door. That is to say, he could have seen these things if
there had been any light, which there was not. He heard the soft
flitting of bare feet, for a delicate sound is often audible in a din
when a loud noise is obscured. Then a gale of wind blew towards him,
as from an open door, and far away gleamed the flickering light of a
lantern.

Suddenly the light disappeared and there was a clatter on the floor and
a breaking of glass. Either the wind or Thomas Yownie.

The verandah door was shut, a match spluttered and the lantern was
relit. Dobson and Leon came into the hall, both clad in long
mackintoshes which glistened from the weather. Dobson halted and
listened to the wind howling in the upper spaces. He cursed it
bitterly, looked at his watch, and then made an observation which woke
the liveliest interest in Dickson lurking beside the awmry and Heritage
ensconced in the shadow of a window-seat.

"He's late. He should have been here five minutes syne. It would be a
dirty road for his car."

So the Unknown was coming that night. The news made Dickson the more
resolved to get the watchers under lock and key before reinforcements
arrived, and so put grit in their wheels. Then his party must
escape--flee anywhere so long as it was far from Dalquharter.

"You stop here," said Dobson, "I'll go down and let Spidel in. We want
another lamp. Get the one that the women use, and for God's sake get a
move on."

The sound of his feet died in