ey were expecting."

Dickson marvelled at himself, yet his speech was not bravado, but the
honest expression of his mind. He was keyed up to a mood in which he
feared nothing very much, certainly not the laws of his country. If he
fell in with the Unknown, he was entirely resolved, if his Maker
permitted him, to do murder as being the simplest and justest solution.
And if in the pursuit of this laudable intention he happened to wing
lesser game it was no fault of his.

"Well, it's a pity ye didn't get him," said Dougal, "him being what we
ken him to be.... I'm for holding a council o' war, and considerin' the
whole position. So far we haven't done that badly. We've shifted our
base without serious casualties. We've got a far better position to
hold, for there's too many ways into yon Hoose, and here there's just
one. Besides, we've fickled the enemy. They'll take some time to find
out where we've gone. But, mind you, we can't count on their staying
long shut up. Dobson's no safe in the boiler-house, for there's a
skylight far up and he'll see it when the light comes and maybe before.
So we'd better get our plans ready. A word with ye, Mr. McCunn," and he
led Dickson aside.

"D'ye ken what these blagyirds were up to?" he whispered fiercely in
Dickson's ear. "They were goin' to pushion the lassie. How do I ken,
says you? Because Thomas Yownie heard Dobson say to Lean at the
scullery door, 'Have ye got the dope?' he says, and Lean says, 'Aye.'
Thomas mindit the word for he had heard about it at the Picters."

Dickson exclaimed in horror.

"What d'ye make o' that? I'll tell ye. They wanted to make sure of
her, but they wouldn't have thought o' dope unless the men they
expectit were due to arrive at any moment. As I see it, we've to face
a siege not by the three but by a dozen or more, and it'll no' be long
till it starts. Now, isn't it a mercy we're safe in here?"

Dickson returned to the others with a grave face.

"Where d'you think the new folk are coming from?" he asked.

Heritage answered, "From Auchenlochan, I suppose? Or perhaps down from
the hills?"

"You're wrong." And he told of Leon's mistaken confidences to him in
the darkness. "They are coming from the sea, just like the old
pirates."

"The sea," Heritage repeated in a dazed voice.

"Ay, the sea. Think what that means. If they had been coming by the
roads, we could have kept track of them, even if they beat us, and some
of these l