movement.

"Tell me again," she said. "You have locked all the three up, and they
are now the imprisoned?"

"Well, it was the boys that, properly speaking, did the locking up."

"It is a great--how do you say?--a turning of the tables. Ah--what is
that?"

At the end of the verandah there was a clattering down of pots which
could not be due to the wind, since the place was sheltered. There was
as yet only the faintest hint of light, and black night still lurked in
the crannies. Followed another fall of pots, as from a clumsy
intruder, and then a man appeared, clear against the glass door by
which the path descended to the rock garden. It was the fourth man,
whom the three prisoners had awaited. Dickson had no doubt at all about
his identity. He was that villain from whom all the others took their
orders, the man whom the Princess shuddered at. Before starting he had
loaded his pistol. Now he tugged it from his waterproof pocket, pointed
it at the other and fired.

The man seemed to be hit, for he spun round and clapped a hand to his
left arm. Then he fled through the door, which he left open.

Dickson was after him like a hound. At the door he saw him running and
raised his pistol for another shot. Then he dropped it, for he saw
something in the crouching, dodging figure which was familiar.

"A mistake," he explained to Jaikie when he returned. "But the shot
wasn't wasted. I've just had a good try at killing the factor!"

CHAPTER X

DEALS WITH AN ESCAPE AND A JOURNEY

Five scouts' lanterns burned smokily in the ground room of the keep
when Dickson ushered his charges through its cavernous door. The lights
flickered in the gusts that swept after them and whistled through the
slits of the windows, so that the place was full of monstrous shadows,
and its accustomed odour of mould and disuse was changed to a salty
freshness. Upstairs on the first floor Thomas Yownie had deposited the
ladies' baggage, and was busy making beds out of derelict iron
bedsteads and the wraps brought from their room. On the ground floor
on a heap of litter covered by an old scout's blanket lay Heritage,
with Dougal in attendance.

The Chieftain had washed the blood from the Poet's brow, and the touch
of cold water was bringing him back his senses. Saskia with a cry flew
to him, and waved off Dickson who had fetched one of the bottles of
liqueur brandy. She slipped a hand inside his shirt and felt the
beating of h