econds. But at that moment
he was aware that the situation had changed.

At the foot of the ladder a tall man seemed to have sprung out of the
ground. He caught the girl in his arms, climbed the ladder, and
McGuffog's great hands reached down and seized her and swung her into
safety. Up the wall, by means of cracks and tufts, was shinning a
small boy.

The stranger coolly faced the pursuers, and at the sight of him they
checked, those behind stumbling against those in front. He was speaking
to them in a foreign tongue, and to Sir Archie's ear the words were
like the crack of a lash. The hesitation was only for a moment, for a
voice among them cried out, and the whole pack gave tongue shrilly and
surged on again. But that instant of check had given the stranger his
chance. He was up the ladder, and, gripping the parapet, found rest
for his feet in a fissure. Then he bent down, drew up the ladder,
handed it to McGuffog, and with a mighty heave pulled himself over the
top.

He seemed to hope to defend the verandah, but the door at the west end
was being assailed by a contingent of the enemy, and he saw that its
thin woodwork was yielding.

"Into the House," he cried, as he picked up the ladder and tossed it
over the wall on the pack surging below. He was only just in time, for
the west door yielded. In two steps he had followed McGuffog through
the chink into the passage, and the concussion of the grand piano
pushed hard against the verandah door from within coincided with the
first battering on the said door from without.

In the garden-room the feeble lamp showed a strange grouping. Saskia
had sunk into a chair to get her breath, and seemed too dazed to be
aware of her surroundings. Dougal was manfully striving to appear at
his ease, but his lip was quivering.

"A near thing that time," he observed. "It was the blame of that man's
auld motor-bicycle."

The stranger cast sharp eyes around the place and company.

"An awkward corner, gentlemen," he said. "How many are there of you?
Four men and a boy? And you have placed guards at all the entrances?"

"They have bombs," Sir Archie reminded him.

"No doubt. But I do not think they will use them here--or their guns,
unless there is no other way. Their purpose is kidnapping, and they
hope to do it secretly and slip off without leaving a trace. If they
slaughter us, as they easily can, the cry will be out against them, and
their vessel will be unpleasa