House down, but that would serve them little. From
his airy pinnacle he could see the whole sea-front of Huntingtower, a
blur in the dusk but for the ghostly eyes of its white-shuttered
windows.

Something was coming from it, running lightly over the lawns, lost for
an instant in the trees, and then appearing clear on the crest of the
ridge where some hours earlier Dougal had lain. With horror he saw that
it was a girl. She stood with the wind plucking at her skirts and
hair, and she cried in a high, clear voice which pierced even the
confusion of the gale. What she cried he could not tell, for it was in
a strange tongue....

But it reached the besiegers. There was a sudden silence in the din
below him and then a confusion of shouting. The men seemed to be
pouring out of the gap which had been the doorway, and as he peered
over the parapet first one and then another entered his area of vision.
The girl on the ridge, as soon as she saw that she had attracted
attention, turned and ran back, and after her up the slopes went the
pursuit bunched like hounds on a good scent.

Mr. John Heritage, swearing terribly, started to retrace his steps.

CHAPTER XIV

THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES

The military historian must often make shift to write of battles with
slender data, but he can pad out his deficiencies by learned parallels.
If his were the talented pen describing this, the latest action fought
on British soil against a foreign foe, he would no doubt be crippled by
the absence of written orders and war diaries. But how eloquently he
would descant on the resemblance between Dougal and Gouraud--how the
plan of leaving the enemy to waste his strength upon a deserted
position was that which on the 15th of July 1918 the French general had
used with decisive effect in Champagne! But Dougal had never heard of
Gouraud, and I cannot claim that, like the Happy Warrior, he

"through the heat of conflict kept the law
In calmness made, and saw what he foresaw."

I have had the benefit of discussing the affair with him and his
colleagues, but I should offend against historic truth if I represented
the main action as anything but a scrimmage--a "soldiers' battle," the
historian would say, a Malplaquet, an Albuera.

Just after half-past three that afternoon the Commander-in-Chief was
revealed in a very bad temper. He had intercepted Sir Archie's car,
and, since Leon was known to be fully occupied,