.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 40555
   :PG.Title: No Man's Island
   :PG.Released: 2012-08-21
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Herbert Strang
   :MARCREL.ill: C. E. Brock
   :DC.Title: No Man's Island
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1921
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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NO MAN'S ISLAND
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      :alt: Cover

      Cover

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   .. _`"THEY RESCUED WHAT THEY COULD"`:

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      :alt: "THEY RESCUED WHAT THEY COULD."  *See page* 152.

      "THEY RESCUED WHAT THEY COULD."  *See page* `152`_.

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      NO MAN'S ISLAND

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      BY

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      HERBERT STRANG

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      ILLUSTRATED BY C. E. BROCK

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      HUMPHREY MILFORD
      OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
      LONDON, EDINBURGH, GLASGOW
      TORONTO, MELBOURNE, CAPE TOWN, BOMBAY
      1921

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      PRINTED 1921 IN GREAT BRITAIN BY R. CLAY AND SONS, LTD.,
      PARIS GARDEN, STAMFORD STREET, S.E.1, AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

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       HERBERT STRANG

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       COMPLETE LIST OF STORIES

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      ADVENTURES OF DICK TREVANION, THE
      ADVENTURES OF HARRY ROCHESTER, THE
      A GENTLEMAN AT ARMS
      A HERO OF LIEGE
      AIR PATROL, THE
      AIR SCOUT, THE
      BARCLAY OF THE GUIDES
      BLUE RAIDER, THE
      BOYS OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
      BRIGHT IDEAS
      BROWN OF MOUKDEN
      BURTON OF THE FLYING CORPS
      CARRY ON
      CRUISE OF THE GYRO-CAR, THE
      FIGHTING WITH FRENCH
      FLYING BOAT, THE
      FRANK FORESTER
      HUMPHREY BOLD
      JACK HARDY
      KING OF THE AIR
      KOBO
      LONG TRAIL, THE
      LORD OF THE SEAS
      MOTOR SCOUT, THE
      NO MAN'S ISLAND
      OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, THE
      ONE OF CLIVE'S HEROES
      PALM TREE ISLAND
      ROB THE RANGER
      ROUND THE WORLD IN SEVEN DAYS
      SAMBA
      SETTLERS AND SCOUTS
      SULTAN JIM
      SWIFT AND SURE
      THROUGH THE ENEMY'S LINES
      TOM BURNABY
      TOM WILLOUGHBY'S SCOUTS
      WITH DRAKE ON THE SPANISH MAIN
      WITH HAIG ON THE SOMME

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      CONTENTS

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      CHAP.

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      I.  `NO MAN'S ISLAND`_
      II.  `BELOW THE BELT`_
      III.  `PRATTLE`_
      IV.  `THE FACE IN THE THICKET`_
      V.  `THE GAME BEGINS`_
      VI.  `A SCRAP OF PAPER`_
      VII.  `TIN-TACKS`_
      VIII.  `PIN-PRICKS`_
      IX.  `REPRISALS`_
      X.  `A SOFT ANSWER`_
      XI.  `INFORMATION RECEIVED`_
      XII.  `QUEER FISH`_
      XIII.  `FIRE!`_
      XIV.  `A CIRCULAR TOUR`_
      XV.  `UNDERGROUND`_
      XVI.  `WATERMARKS`_
      XVII.  `THE TOPMOST ROOM`_
      XVIII.  `ZERO`_
      XIX.  `THE PRISONER`_
      XX.  `THE PACE QUICKENS`_
      XXI.  `TRAPPED`_
      XXII.  `A PARLEY`_
      XXIII.  `"VI ET ARMIS"`_
      XXIV.  `A LEVY EN MASSE`_
      XXV.  `SQUARING ACCOUNTS`_

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      \ \ \ \ \ \ `EPILOGUE`_

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      LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

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      `"THEY RESCUED WHAT THEY COULD"`_ (see p. `152`_) . . . *Frontispiece in Colour*

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      `"'CLEAR UP ALL THIS DISGUSTING LITTER'"`_

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      `"THE FOREIGNER CHARGED UPON HIM LIKE AN INFURIATED BULL"`_

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      `"THE OTHER WAS DIVING INTO THE STREAM"`_

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      `"'GOT A PUNCTURE, OLD MAN?'"`_

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      `"THEY SHINNED UP A SMALL TREE"`_

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      `"HALF A MINUTE LATER THE CAR RAN PAST"`_

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      `"PRATT THREW THE INTRUDER HEAVILY TO THE GROUND"`_

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      `"'ZE TOWER?  NO, IT IS RUIN, FALL TO PIECES'"`_

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      `"THEY LIFTED THE BUNDLES OF GEAR, AND CARRIED THEM INTO THE HUT"`_

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      `"'THE BOTTOM'S ONLY ABOUT FIVE FEET DEEP'"`_

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      `"THEY SAW A SHORT, STOUT MAN DRAWING SHEETS OF PAPER FROM THE OPENED PACKAGE"`_

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      `"BETWEEN THEM THE TWO BOYS ASSISTED THE MOTHER"`_

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      `"HE STRODE UP AND DOWN, HIS LARGE BONY HANDS CLASPED BEHIND HIM"`_

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      `"HE REMAINED FOR AN INSTANT IN HIS BENT POSITION, MOTIONLESS"`_

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      `"RUSH SWIFTLY ROPED HIS ARMS AND LEGS TOGETHER"`_

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      `"HE STAGGERED BACKWARD, AND THE PISTOL WAS KNOCKED FROM HIS HAND"`_

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      `"'SQUEEZE INTO THE BOAT'"`_

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      `"THE FARMER WAS UPPERMOST"`_

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.. _`NO MAN'S ISLAND`:

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   CHAPTER I


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   NO MAN'S ISLAND

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One hot August afternoon, a motor-boat, with
a little dinghy in tow, was thrashing its way up
a narrow, winding river in Southern Wessex.
The stream, swollen by the drainage of overnight
rain from the high moors that loomed in the hazy
blue distance, was running riotously, casting
buffets of spray across the bows of the little craft,
and tossing like a cork the dinghy astern.  On
either side a dense entanglement of shrubs, bushes,
and saplings overhung the water's edge, forming
a sort of rampart or outwork for the taller trees
behind.

The occupants of the boat were three.  Amidships,
its owner, Phil Warrender, was dividing
his attention between the engine and the tiller.
Warrender was tall, lithe, swarthy, with crisp
black hair which seemed to lift his cap as an
irksome incubus.  A little abaft of him sat Jack
Armstrong, bent forward over an Ordnance map:
he had the lean, tight-skinned features, spare
frame, and hard muscles of the athlete, and his
hay-coloured hair was cropped as close as a
prize-fighter's.  In the bows, on the scrap of deck,
Percy Pratt, facing the others, squatted
cross-legged like an Oriental cobbler, and dreamily
twanged a banjo.  He was shorter and of stouter
build than his companions, with a round, chubby
face and brown curly hair clustering close to his
poll, and caressing the edge of his cap like the
tendrils of a creeper.  All three boys were in their
eighteenth year, and wore the flannels, caps, and
blazers of their school Eleven.

"We ought to be nearing this island," remarked
Armstrong, looking up from his map.  "I say,
Pratt, you've been here before: can't you
remember something about it?"

Pratt thrummed his strings, smiled sweetly, and
sang, in the head notes of a light tenor--

   |   "The roses have made me remember
   |     All that I tried to forget;
   |   The past with its pain comes back again,
   |     Filling my heart with----

Sorry, old man, I've pitched it a bit too high.
Lend me your ears while I modulate from G to
E flat."

"Keep your Percy's Reliques for serenading
the moon.  You were here as a kid; aren't we
nearly there?"

"'The past with its pain'--fact!  It *was* pain.
My old uncle could beat any beak at licking.  He
made a very pretty criss-cross pattern on me that
day--all for pinching a peach!  Frightful temper
he had.  My people said it was due to sunstroke
on his travels.  Jolly lot of good being a famous
traveller, if it makes you a beast.  He was more
ratty every time he came home.  I don't wonder
my pater had a royal row with him, and hasn't
been near the place since.  Rough luck, to have
to desert your ancestral dust-heap.

   |   "I try, try to forget you,
   |   But I only love you more."
   |

"Isn't that the island?  Away there to
starboard?" Warrender interposed.  "But I thought
you said we might camp there, my Percy?"

"True, sober Philip.  We picnicked there in
the days of yore."

"Well, we'd have to do a week's clearing before
we camped there now.  Look at it!"

Pratt swung lazily round on his elbow, and
gazed over the starboard quarter towards the
left bank.  The river was parted by what was
evidently an island.  The channel between it
and the left bank was very narrow, and almost
impassable by reason of the low, overhanging
branches, which formed a tunnel of foliage.
Warrender steered across the broader channel towards
the right bank, all three scanning the island intently
as they coasted along.

"Shows how old Tempus fugit," said Pratt.
"In the dim and distant ages when I was a kid
that island was a lawn; now it's a wilderness.
Think what your beardless cheeks will be like in
ten years' time, Armstrong.  See what Nature will
do unless you use the razor.  The place seems
quite changed somehow.  But I'd never have
believed trees could grow so fast.  As we're not
dicky birds, we certainly can't pitch our camp
there.  Drive on, old shover."

The island was, indeed, to all appearances, more
densely wooded than the river banks.  By the
map scale it was about a third of a mile long,
and at its widest part fully half as broad.  Nowhere
along its whole extent did they see a spot suitable
for camping.

They ran past the island.  The stream narrowed;
the wooded character of the mainland banks was
unchanged.

"We might as well be on the Congo," growled
Armstrong.  "Are you sure your uncle didn't
bring back a bit of Africa in his carpet bag, Pratt,
and plank it down here?"

   |   "Let the great big world keep turning,
   |   Never mind, if I've got you,"

hummed Pratt.  "Turn your eyes three points
a-starboard, Armstrong, and you'll see, peeping
at you through the sylvan groves, the gables of
my ancestors' eligible and beautifully situated
riverside residence.  It's pretty nearly a
quarter-mile from the river, but that's a detail."

Warrender slowed down so that they might
get a better view of the stately old house of
which they caught glimpses through gaps in the
woodland.

"You behold that ruined ivy-clad tower about
a cable's length away from it," Pratt went on.
"Tradition saith that one of my ancestors
incarcerated there a foeman unworthy of his steel, and
forgot to feed him."

"Well, I want my tea," said Armstrong.  "We
had next to no lunch, and I can't live on memories."

A sharp crack cut the air.

"Some one's shooting in the woods ahead,"
said Warrender.  "Perhaps we'll catch sight of
them, and get a direction."

"Why not make a polite inquiry of that
woodland faun or satyr smoking a clay pipe yonder?"
suggested Pratt, pointing with his banjo to the
left bank.

On a tree-stump near the water's edge sat a
thick-set man, square-faced, beetle-browed,
blear-eyed, a cloth cap pushed back on his close-cropped
bullet head, a red cloth tie knotted about his
neck.  He wore a rusty, much-rubbed velveteen
jacket, corduroy breeches, and a pair of shabby
leggings.  Warrender slowed down until the boat
just held its own against the current, and
called--"Hi! can you tell us of a clear space where
we can camp?"

The man looked suspiciously from one to another,
chewing the stem of his pipe.

"Can't," said he, surlily.

"Surely there's a stretch of turf somewhere?"
Warrender persisted.

"Bain't.  Not hereabouts.  Woods, from here
to village up along."

"Nothing back on the island?"

The man half closed his eyes, and again
suspicion lurked in the glance he gave the speaker.

"No.  No Man's Island be nought but furze
and thicket.  Nothing hereabouts.  Better go on
and doss at the Ferry Inn."

Then, however, he leered, barely recovering his
pipe as it slipped from between his discoloured
teeth.  "Ay, I were forgetting," he said with a
chuckle.  "There be a patch farther up.  Ay,
that might suit 'ee.  A party camped there last
week.  Ay, try en."

He chuckled again.  Warrender opened the
throttle, and when the boat had run a few yards
up a guffaw, quickly stifled, sounded astern.

"Pleasant fellow," remarked Armstrong.

   |   "When you are near, the dullest day seems bright;
   |   Doubts disappear, my load of care grows light,"

warbled Pratt.  "But he didn't say which bank
it's on."

"We can't miss it," said Warrender,--"unless
he was pulling our leg."

Within three minutes, however, they found that
the man had not misled them.  There was
disclosed, on the right bank, a considerable stretch
of smooth green sward, affording ample space for
their bell-tent and the simple impedimenta of their
camp.  Warrender ran the boat in, and hitched
it to a sapling; then the three began to transfer
their equipment to the shore.  Besides their tent,
they had a Primus stove, a kettle, a couple of
saucepans, pots, cups and plates of enamel, pewter
forks and, stainless knives, cases of provisions,
three sleeping-bags, three folding stools, and other
oddments.

While Warrender and Armstrong were stretching
and pegging out the tent, Pratt started the
stove, filled the kettle from the river, and assembled
such utensils as they needed for their tea.  These
operations were punctuated by renewed sounds of
shooting, which were drawing nearer through the
woods that skirted the clearing.

"I say, you chaps," cried Pratt, "I wonder if
I talked nicely, if I could coax out of them
something gamey for supper to-night?"

"Wouldn't you like to sing for your supper,
like little Tommy Tucker?" said Armstrong.

"Excellent idea!  As you know, I've got a
select and extensive repertoire, and--hallo!  Here's
my little dog Bingo."

A retriever came trotting out of the wood, stopped
in the middle of the clearing, and gazed for a
moment inquiringly at the tent, just erected;
then turned tail and trotted back.

"A very gentlemanly dog," said Pratt.  "No
loud discordant bark, no inquisitive snuffling;
evidence of good breeding and a kind master."

"Hi, there!" called a loud voice.  "What
are you doing on my land?  Who the deuce
gave you permission to camp?"

A stout, florid, white-whiskered gentleman of
some sixty years, wearing a loose shooting costume,
and carrying a shot-gun under his arm, hurried
across the clearing, the retriever at his heels.

"I'm sorry, sir," said Warrender, politely.
"We've come up the river, and this is the first
suitable place we've found.  If we had known----"

"Known!" interrupted the stranger.  "You
knew it wasn't common land--public property.
If you didn't know, any one about here would
have told you."

"Just so, sir.  But we understood that a
party had camped here a short while ago, and----"

"You understood, boy?  And where did you
get your information?"

"From a gamekeeper sort of man a little below
on the other bank.  He----"

"That'll do," snapped the sportsman.  "Take
down that tent.  Clear up all this disgusting
litter, and be off.  The place reeks with paraffin.
Look alive, now."

.. _`"'CLEAR UP ALL THIS DISGUSTING LITTER'"`:

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   :alt: "'CLEAR UP ALL THIS DISGUSTING LITTER.'"

   "'CLEAR UP ALL THIS DISGUSTING LITTER.'"


In silence Warrender and Armstrong began
to loosen the tent guys, while Pratt put out the
stove and started to carry the properties down
to the boat.  He alone of the three showed
no sign of feeling; his friends sometimes said
that he was perennially happy because he was
fat, not, as he himself explained, because he had
music in his soul.  Warrender's mouth had
hardened, his face grown pale--sure indications of
wrath.  Armstrong, on the contrary, had flushed
over the cheek-bones, and expended his anger in
muscular energy, heaving unaided the tent to his
back, and carrying it, the pole, guys, and pegs,
with the ease of a coal-porter.  The landowner
stood sternly on guard until the place was cleared.

The boat moved off.

"Dashed old curmudgeon!" growled Armstrong.

"He and my uncle Ambrose would make a
pretty pair," remarked Pratt.  "I'd give
anything to hear a slanging match between 'em.
Anything but this," he added, taking up his banjo.

   |   "I had a little dog,
   |   And his name was Bingo.

His master's name ought to be 'Stingo!'  Eh, what?"

"It happens to be Crawshay," said Warrender,
pointing to a tree.  Upon it was nailed a board,
facing upstream, and bearing the half-obliterated
legend, "Trespassers will be Prosecuted."  Below
this, however, in fresh paint, were the words,
"Camping Prohibited.--D. CRAWSHAY."

"Precisely; D. Crawshay," said Armstrong.





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.. _`BELOW THE BELT`:

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   CHAPTER II


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   BELOW THE BELT

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Something less than a mile up the river they
came upon an old-fashioned gabled cottage of
red brick, standing back a few yards from the
left bank.  The walls were half-covered with
Virginia creeper; a purple clematis climbed over
the porch and round a sign-board bearing the
words, "Ferry Inn."  Beyond it, on rising ground
some little distance away, glowed the red-tiled
roofs of a straggling village.  A ferry boat, or rather
punt, lay alongside of a narrow landing-stage.

The lads tied the boat to a post, and stepped
on to the planking.  At the closed door of the
inn, standing with legs wide apart, was a little,
round man whose jolly, rubicund, clean-shaven
face and twinkling eyes bespoke good humour
and a contented soul.  He was bare-headed, in
shirt-sleeves, and wore an apron.  His brown,
straight hair was obviously a wig.  In front of
him stood a group of villagers.

"'Tis past opening time, I tell 'ee," one of
them was saying.  "I can tell by the feel of my
thropple."

"'Twould be always opening time if you trusted
to that, Mick," said the landlord, with a laugh.
"I go by my watch."  He pulled out with some
difficulty from the tight band of his apron a large
silver timepiece.  "There you are; three minutes
to the hour."

"Well, I reckon you be three minutes slow,
and so you could swear to if so be----"

A slight jerk of the landlord's head caused the
rustic to look along the road to the right.
Strolling towards the inn was the village policeman.

"He's had me fined once, and I didn't deserve
it," the landlord remarked.  "And there's another
who'd like to catch me tripping."

His eyes travelled beyond the policeman, and
rested on a thin, loose-jointed man with a stubbly
fair moustache and a close-cut beard, who was
hurrying to catch up with the constable.

"Ay, Sammy Blevins do have a nature for
such," said another of the rustics.  "'Tis my belief
he'll be caught tripping himself one o' these days."

"Ay, and Constable Hardstone too," said the
first.  "Birds of a feather.  They be thick as
thieves, they two, and no friends o' yours, Joe.
Well, I bain't the man to glory in a friend's
tribulation, and so you may keep your door shut till
three minutes past."

"Say, when is this blamed door opening?"

The loud, hoarse voice caused a general turning
of heads.  From round the corner of the inn
sauntered, somewhat unsteadily, his hands in his
pockets, a big burly fellow whose red waistcoat,
tight leather breeches, and long gaiters proclaimed
some connection with horseflesh.  His accent was
nasal, but there was an undefinable something in
his pronunciation that suggested a European rather
than an American origin.  A long, fair moustache
drooped round the corners of a wide, straight
mouth; his clean-shaven cheeks were thin and
hard; his pale-blue eyes heavy-lidded and watery.
The rustics appeared to fall back a little as he
approached.  He leant one shoulder against a post
of the porch, and scowled at the landlord, attitude
and gesture indicating that, so far from needing
refreshment, he had anticipated the opening of the
door.

"All in good time, Mr. Jensen," said the
landlord, placably.  "Law's law, you know."

"Law!" scoffed the man.  "I'm sober.  I want
a lemon-squash.  See, if you don't open that
door----  Ah!  I guess you know me."

The landlord, consulting his watch, had turned,
and now threw open the door leading into the
bar.  The foreigner entered behind him, and was
followed by the villagers one by one.  A pleasant-faced,
motherly woman came out into the porch,
and looked inquiringly at the three lads.  They
walked up from the landing-stage, where they had
lingered watching the scene.

"Can we have some tea?" asked Warrender.

"Ay sure," replied the woman.  "They told me
as three young gemmen had come up along in boat,
and I says to myself 'tis tea, as like as not.  Sit 'ee
down at thikky table, and I'll bring it out to 'ee."

"We're pretty hungry," said Armstrong.  "What
can you give us?"

"Why, there 'tis--I've nothing but eggs and bacon."

"Glorious!" said Pratt.  "Two eggs apiece,
and bacon to match."

"Ay, I know what young gemmen's appetite
be," said Mrs. Rogers, smiling as she bustled away.

They sat down at a table placed outside the
window.  Within they saw Rogers, the landlord,
energetically pulling ale for his customers.  He
had laid aside his snuff-coloured wig, revealing a
scalp perfectly bald.

While they were awaiting their meal, a girl,
dressed in white, riding a bicycle, came along the
road on the far side of the river, and, dismounting
at the landing-stage, rang her bell continuously as
a summons to the ferryman.  An old weather-beaten
man emerged from the back premises of
the inn, touched his hat, hobbled down to his
boat, and slowly poled it across.  The girl wheeled
her bicycle on to it, chatted to the old man while
he recrossed the river, paid him with a silver coin
and smiling thanks, and, having remounted, sped
on towards the village.

"Why didn't I bring up my banjo?" said Pratt,
dolefully.  "Of course, I can sing without
accompaniment.

   |   "There's no sunbeam as bright as your smile,
   |   There's no gold like the sheen of your hair----

but you do want the one-two-tum, one-two-tum
to get the full effect, don't you, eh?"

"You sentimental owl!" exclaimed Armstrong,
laughing.  "Here comes our tea."

They had finished their meal, and were leaning
back comfortably in their chairs, when the drone
of talk within the inn was suddenly broken by
voices raised in altercation.  The clamour
subsided for a moment under the landlord's protest,
but burst forth again.  There was a noise of
scuffling, then two men appeared in the doorway,
struggling together in the first aimless clinches
of a fight.  They stumbled over the step; behind
them came the villagers in a group, some of them
making half-hearted attempts by word and act to
separate the combatants.  These, reaching the
open, shook off restraint, swung their arms as if
to clear a space, and, after a preliminary feint or
two, rushed upon each other.

Warrender and his friends got up; were there
ever schoolboys, even sixth-formers and prefects,
who were not interested in a fight?  The
antagonists were not unequally matched.  Height and
weight were on the side of the foreigner, but his
opponent, apparently a young farmer, though
slighter in build, had clear eyes and a healthy
skin, contrasting with the other's well-marked
signs of habitual excess.

The rustics formed up on one side, looking on
stolidly.  The three lads moved round until they
faced the inn door.  On the step stood the landlord
with arms akimbo.  His wife came behind him,
slapped his wig on to his head, and retreated.

For a minute or two the combatants, displaying
more energy than science, employed their arms
like erratic piston-rods, hitting the air more often
than each other's body.  Armstrong's lip curled
with amusement as he watched them.  Then they
appeared to realise that they had started too
precipitately, and drew apart to throw off their
coats and recover their wind.

"What's the quarrel?" asked Warrender, in
the brief interval, of the nearest bystander.

"Furriner chap he said as the Germans be better
fighters than us Englishmen, and that riled Henery
Drew, he having the military medal and all.  You
can see the ribbon on his coat."

Stripped to their shirts, the combatants faced
each other.  They sparred warily for a moment,
then the farmer darted forward on his toes, landed
a blow on the foreigner's nose, between the eyes,
and, springing back out of reach, just escaped
his opponent's counter.

"One for his jib!" murmured Armstrong.

The blow, and the subdued applause of the
rustic onlookers, enraged the foreigner.  Swinging
his bulk forward he bore down on the slighter
Englishman, appeared to envelop him, and for a
few seconds the two men seemed to be a tangle
of whirling arms.  Suddenly Armstrong sprang
towards them, shouting, "Foul blow!"  At the
same moment the farmer reeled, and the foreigner,
following up his advantage, dealt him a furious
body-blow that dropped him flat as a turbot.
Angry cries broke from the crowd, but, before the
slower-witted rustics could act, Armstrong dashed
between Jensen and the prostrate man.

"You hound!" he cried.  "You'll deal with me now."

One arm was already out of its sleeve, but before
he could fling off his blazer the foreigner charged
upon him like an infuriated bull.  Armstrong
sidestepped, threw his blazer on the ground, and stood
firmly, ready to meet the next onrush.

.. _`"THE FOREIGNER CHARGED UPON HIM LIKE AN INFURIATED BULL"`:

.. figure:: images/img-025.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "THE FOREIGNER CHARGED UPON HIM LIKE AN INFURIATED BULL."

   "THE FOREIGNER CHARGED UPON HIM LIKE AN INFURIATED BULL."

The big man topped him by a couple of inches,
and bore down as if to smother him by sheer weight.
He shot out a long arm; Armstrong ducked, and
quick as lightning got in a counter-hit that took
the foreigner by surprise and caused him to draw
back an inch or two.  Armstrong said afterwards
that he ought to be shot for mis-timing the blow,
which he had expected to crack the man's
wind-box.  Already breathing fast, the foreigner
perceived that his only chance of winning was to
strike at once.  He lowered his head and swung
out his left arm in a lusty drive at Armstrong's
ribs.  It was an opening not to be missed by a
skilled boxer.  With left foot well forward and
body thrown slightly back, Armstrong dealt him
a smashing right upper-cut on the point of the
chin.  The man collapsed like a nine-pin, and
measured his six feet two on the ground.

"Jolly good biff, old man!" cried Pratt.
"Won't somebody cheer?"

The rustics were smiling broadly, but their
satisfaction at the close of the battle found no
more adequate mode of expression than a
prolonged sigh and a cry: "Sarve en right!"  The
farmer, however, a little pale about the gills, had
risen to his feet, and, approaching Armstrong,
said--

"Thank 'ee, sir.  'Twas a rare good smite as
ever I see, and I take it kind as a young gentleman
should have----"

"Oh, that's all right," Armstrong interrupted,
slipping on his blazer.  "He should have fought
fair."

"True.  A smite in the stummick don't give a
man a chance.  I feel queerish-like, and I'll get
Joe Rogers to give me a thimbleful, and then shail
home-along.  That's my barton, on the hill yonder,
and if so be you're stopping hereabout, I'll be main
glad to supply you and your friends with milk
*and* cream."

Assisted by two of his cronies, the farmer walked
into the inn, the rest of the crowd hanging about
and casting sheepish glances of admiration at
Armstrong.

"You'll come in and take a drop of summat,
sir?" inquired the landlord.

"No, thanks," replied Armstrong.  "You might
have a look at that fellow, will you?"

"And can you give us beds to-night?" asked
Warrender.

"Ay sure, the missus will see to that."

"Very well; we'll just go on to the village
and get a thing or two, and come back before
closing time.  You'll give an eye to our boat?"

The innkeeper having promised to set the
ferryman in charge of the boat, the three struck
into the road.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`PRATTLE`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER III


.. class:: center medium

   PRATTLE

.. vspace:: 2

The one street of the village contained only
two shops.  One of these, the forepart of a simple
cottage, was post office and general store, whose
window displayed groceries, sweetstuffs, stockings,
reels of cotton, and other articles of a miscellaneous
stock.  A few yards beyond it stood a larger,
newer, and uglier building, the lower storey of
which was a double-fronted shop, exhibiting on
the one side a heterogeneous heap of old iron, on
the other a few agricultural implements, a
ramshackle bicycle, a mangle, tin tea-pots, a can of
petrol, a concertina, and various oddments.  Above
the door, in crude letters painted yellow, ran the
description: "Samuel Blevins, General Dealer."

"We must try the post office," said Warrender.
"But I don't expect we'll find anything up to
much.  Still, there'll be some local views."

They entered the little shop, filling the space
in front of the counter, and began to examine
picture-postcards.  The shopkeeper, a middle-aged
woman in a widow's cap, was in the act of
handing packets of baking-powder to a customer--a
small man who turned quickly about as the boys
went in, showing a plump, brown face decorated
with a tiny, black moustache and dark, vivacious eyes.

"And how be your missus?" the woman was saying.

"She is ver' vell," said the man, swinging
round again.  "Zat is, not bad--not bad.  She
have a cold--yes, shust a leetle cold."

"I be main glad 'tis nothing worse," said the
shopkeeper, drily.  "Rogers did say only this
morning as he hadn't seed or heard anything of
her for a week or more--and her his own sister,
too, and not that breadth between 'em.  She might
as well be in foreign parts.  'Twas never thoughted
when she married you, Mr. Rod; my meaning is,
Rogers believed her'd always be in and out, being
so near; whereas the truth is he sees no more of
her than if she lived at t'other end of the kingdom."

"And now ze isinglass," said the man, with
the obvious intention of turning the conversation.
"Vat!  No isinglass?  Zis is terrible country.
Vell, zat is all, madame.  You put every'ing in
ze book?"

"Trust me for that, Mr. Rod.  Remember me
to Mary, and I hope she'll soon be rid of her cold."

The man gathered up his purchases, and left
the shop, darting a glance at each of the boys
as he passed them.

They bought a few postcards and some postage
stamps, and issued forth into the street.  Blevins,
the general dealer, standing at his shop-door with
his hands under his coat-tails, gave them a hard look.

"These country folk are as inquisitive as moths,"
remarked Armstrong.

"Take us for strolling minstrels, I dare say,"
rejoined Pratt.  "Lucky I didn't bring my banjo."

"Our blazers make us a trifle conspicuous,"
said Warrender.  "I say, as we've plenty of time
before dark, and I don't want to run into that
crowd at the inn again, suppose we stroll on."

They passed the general dealer's, soon left
the last of the cottages behind them, and rambled
along the grassy bank of the road, which wound
across a wide and barren heath land.  About
half a mile from the village they came to narrower
cross-roads, leading apparently to the few scattered
farmsteads of the neighbourhood.  A few yards
beyond this they saw, rounding a bend, a girl
on a bicycle coasting down a slight hill towards them.

"The fair maid in white!" said Pratt.  "I
think my banjo ought to have been a guitar, or
a lute, whatever that is."

A loud report startled them all.  The bicycle
wobbled, stopped, and the girl sprang lightly
from her saddle, and bent down to examine the
front tyre.  She rose just before the boys reached
her, gave them a fleeting glance, and started to
wheel the machine down the road.

After a brief hesitation Warrender turned towards
her, lifting his cap.

"Can I be of any assistance?" he asked.

"Oh, please don't trouble," replied the girl.
"It's a frightfully bad puncture, and I haven't
very far to go."

"Some distance across the ferry?"

"Well, yes; but this will take a long time, and
I really couldn't think of----"

"It's no trouble--if you have an outfit."

"Yes, I have, but----"

"He's a dab at mending tyres, I assure you,"
Pratt broke in.  "Also at all sorts of tinkering
old jobs.  Our engine broke down the other
day--that's our motor-boat, down at the ferry, you
know--I dare say you saw it when you passed
an hour ago--or was it two?  It seems a jolly
long time.  Do let him try his hand; he'll be
heartbroken if you don't.  Besides, wheeling a
bicycle is no joke; I know from experience; and
for a lady--why, there's a smudge on your dress
already.  Really----"

Like many loquacious persons, Pratt was apt
to let his tongue run away with him.  The girl
had shown more and more amusement with every
sentence that bubbled from his glib lips, and here
she broke into a frank laugh, and surrendered the
bicycle to Warrender, who laid it down on the
grass bordering the road, opened the tool pouch
and set to work.

"He may be nervous, and fumble a bit, you
know," said Pratt, "if we look at him.  I used
to be like that myself, when I was young.  Don't
you think we'd better walk on?  Perhaps you'd
like to be shown over our boat?"

"I think I'd prefer to wait for my bicycle,"
said the girl, demurely.

"Warrender's quite to be trusted," rejoined
Pratt.  "He isn't just an ordinary tramp or tinker.
We've none of us chosen our professions yet.  We
*have* been called 'The Three Musketeers' in some
quarters."

"At school, I suppose," the girl put in.

"Because we're always together, you know,"
Pratt continued.  "We came up the river to-day--on
a holiday cruise--all the joys of nautical
adventure without any of the discomforts.  Of
course, there are disappointments; bound to be.
We thought of camping on the banks--one of
the banks, I mean--but, as Armstrong said, it
might be the Congo, it's so frightfully overgrown,
and as we didn't bring axes or dynamite, or any
of the old things that explorers use, we had to
reconcile ourselves to the shattering of our dreams....
Whew!  That was a near thing!"

At the cross-roads just below, a motor-car,
carrying two men, had emerged suddenly from
the right, and run into a country cart which had
been lumbering along the high road from the
direction of the village.  The chauffeur had clapped
his brakes on in time to avoid a serious collision,
but two spokes of the cart's near wheel had been
smashed, and the wing of the car crumpled.
Springing out of the car, the chauffeur, a
dark-skinned little man, rushed up to the carter, who
had been trudging on the off-side at the horse's
head, and began to berate him excitedly, with
much play of hands.

"Vy you not have care?" he shouted, so rapidly
that the monosyllables seemed to form one word.
"You take up all ze road; you sink all ze road
belong to you; you not look round ze corner;
no, you blind fool, you crash bang into my car,
viss I not know how many pounds of damage."

"Bain't my fault," said the carter, stoutly.
"Can *you* see round the corner?  Then why didn't
you blow your horn?"

The chauffeur retorted with a torrent of abuse,
in which broken English and expletives in some
foreign tongue seemed equally mingled, the carter
keeping up a monotonous chant of "Bain't my
fault, I tell 'ee."

The former appealed to his passenger, a tall
man of fair complexion and straw-coloured moustache
and beard.  A lull in the altercation between
the other two enabled him to declare that the
carter was in the wrong, and his clear measured
words rang with a distinctly foreign intonation in
the ears of the four spectators above.  The squabble
revived, and was ended only when the passenger
got out of the car, laid a soothing hand on the
chauffeur, and persuaded the carter to give his
name, which he wrote down in a pocket-book.  A
few seconds later the car snorted away into the
cross-road on the left-hand side.

Warrender had looked up from his task only
for a moment, but the other three had watched
the whole scene in silent amusement.

"Can you tell us," said Pratt to the girl,
"whether the Tower of Babel is anywhere in
this neighbourhood?  We've seen four foreigners
since we landed at the ferry an hour or two ago,
and, if accent is any guide, they all hail from
different parts."

"It is funny, isn't it?" said the girl.  "And
the explanation is funny, too.  They are all
servants of a strange old gentleman who lives in a
big house near the river.  Some people say he is
mad, but I think he's only very bad-tempered."

"Very likely the old buffer we saw.  But go
on, please."

"His English servants went to him one day
in a body and asked him to raise their wages.
It was quite reasonable, don't you think, with
all the labourers and people earning twice as
much as they did before the war?  But they say
he stormed at them, using the most dreadful
language, dismissed them all, and vowed he would
never have an English servant again.  Frightfully,
silly of him, but my father says that there's no
telling what extremes a hot-tempered lunatic like
Mr. Pratt will----"

"Who?" ejaculated Pratt.

"That's his name--Mr. Ambrose Pratt.
Perhaps you have heard of him?  He was a great
traveller--quite famous, I believe."

"My aunt!  I mean--I'm rather taken by
surprise, you know; but--well, the fact is,"
stammered Pratt, "he's--he's my uncle."

"Mr. Pratt is!  Oh, I'm so sorry!"

"So am I!"

"For calling him such names, I mean."

"Nothing to what I've called him, I assure you.
He gave me an awful licking once.  Not that that
matters, of course; we men don't think anything
of a licking; no--what I meant was I'm sorry
an uncle of mine is bringing the ancient and
honourable name of Pratt into disrepute.  Why,
he must be a regular laughing-stock.  Fancy
having a menagerie of foreigners!"

"But didn't you know?  Aren't you staying
with him, then?"

"Rather not.  We're not on speaking terms."

"I remember--you said you were thinking of
camping out."

"Yes; and our dream was shattered.  We've
had to take beds at the inn.  It's terrible to lose
your illusions, isn't it?  We all thought nobly
of our fellow-men till this afternoon, and now
our hearts are seared, and we'll be frightful cynics
till the end of the chapter.  I don't suppose you
know him, but there's a bullet-headed brute of a
fellow in a red choker and a velveteen coat who
sits on a tree-stump down the river----"

"Oh, yes," said the girl.  "That's Rush.
Every one knows him.  I believe he has been
in prison for poaching."

"Well, it seems to be his business in life now
to delude unhappy mariners; a regular siren
luring them to their doom.  We asked him to
direct us to a camping-place.  At first he
protested there was no suitable spot, but his malignant
spirit prompted him to tell us of a glade where
the sward was like velvet, under a charming canopy
of umbrageous foliage.  We had just got our tent
up, and I was boiling the kettle for tea, when
there broke upon our solitude a man and a
dog--detestable, unnatural creatures both; the dog
hadn't a bark in him--it was all transferred to the
man.  The old buffer barked and bellowed and
bullied and brow-beat and bundled us off."

A ripple of laughter from the girl's lips brought
Pratt up short.  He looked at her reproachfully.

"Do forgive me," she said, "but do you know,
I'm sure that--old buffer--was my father!"

Even the ebullient Pratt was rendered speechless;
as Armstrong afterwards put it, in boxing
parlance, "he was fairly fibbed in the wind."

"Father is a little hasty, but quite a dear,
really," the girl continued.  "He has been
frightfully annoyed by trespassers--that man Rush,
for one, and some of Mr. Pratt's servants.  But
don't you think perhaps we had better say no
more about our relations?"

"Certainly," said Armstrong, with a solemn
air of conviction.  It was the first word he had
spoken, and the girl gave him a quick, amused
glance.

"Umpire gives us both out!" remarked Pratt,
his equanimity quite restored.  "We are now
back in the *status quo*, Miss Crawshay, with this
difference: that we know each other's name.
The Bard of Avon wouldn't have asked 'What's
in a name?' if he had been here five minutes ago.
If you had known my name, and I had known
that you were the daughter of----"

"That's forbidden ground, Mr. Pratt."

"Well, is there any ground that isn't
forbidden?" Pratt rejoined.  "For our camp, I
mean?"

"Why not try No Man's Island?"

"Siren Rush told us it's a mere wilderness,
'long heath, brown furze,' and so on."

"Oh!  That's quite wrong; he must know
better than that.  There's an excellent camping
place on the narrower channel.  We often picnicked
there before my father quarrelled with Mr. P----"

Smiling, she caught herself up.

"Call 'em X and Y," suggested Pratt.  "It
is a sort of simultaneous equation, isn't it?  But
the island can't belong to Y unless Y is generally
recognised in the neighbourhood as no man at all."

"Nobody knows whose it is.  The owner died
years ago; his cottage there is falling to ruin;
they say it belongs now to a distant relative in
the colonies."

"Then there's no one to chevy us away, as
soon as we've got things shipshape?"

"Unless you're afraid of ghosts.  There are
all sorts of queer tales; the country folk shake
their heads when the island is mentioned; not
one of them will have the courage to set foot
on it."

"A haunted island!  How jolly!  I've always
wanted to meet a spook.  That's an additional
attraction, I assure you.  Perhaps I can soothe
the perturbed spirits with my banjo.  I admit it
has the opposite effect on Armstrong, but----"

The girl turned suddenly away towards Warrender,
who had finished his job and was pumping
up the tyre.

"You frightful ass!" muttered Armstrong
in a savage undertone, heard by Pratt alone.
"You've done nothing but drivel for the last
half-hour."

"All right, old mule," retorted Pratt, grinning.

"Yes, it will carry you home," Warrender was
saying, "but I'm afraid you'll have to get a new
tyre."

"Thanks so much.  It is really awfully good
of you," replied the girl.

"I'm sorry I've been such a time."

"I've been very well entertained.  It hasn't
seemed long at all.  Thank you again.  Good-bye."

She mounted the bicycle, beamed an impartial
smile upon the three, and sped away down the road.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE FACE IN THE THICKET`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER IV


.. class:: center medium

   THE FACE IN THE THICKET

.. vspace:: 2

When the three friends arrived at the inn it was
full to the door.  Rogers, wigless again, caught
sight of Warrender over the heads of the crowd,
and came from behind the counter, edging his way
outwards through the press of villagers.

"Missus have got the rooms shipshape, sir,"
he said.  "She's a rare woman for making a man
comfortable."

"I'm sure she is," returned Warrender, "and
I'm only sorry we shan't know it by personal
experience.  The fact is, we're going to camp on
No Man's Island; there's plenty of time before
sunset to fix ourselves up."

"She'll be main sorry, that she will," said the
innkeeper, pocketing the two half-crowns Warrender
handed him.  "No Man's Island, did 'ee say?
Maybe you haven't heard what folk do tell?"

"We have heard something, but I dare say
it's just talk, you know.  Anyhow, we're going
to try it, and we'll let you know in the morning
how we get on."

"Now, Rogers--drat the man!" cried his wife's
voice from behind.  She came out into the porch,
flourishing his wig.  "How many times have I
told 'ee I won't have 'ee showing yourself without
your hair?  If you do be a great baby, there's no
need for 'ee to look like one."

Rogers meekly allowed her to adjust the wig,
explaining meanwhile the intention of the expected
guests.  She received the news with disappointment
and concern.

"I hope nothing ill will come o't," she said.
"Fists bain't no mortal use against spirits; 'twould
be like hitting the wind.  Howsomever, the young
will always go their own gait.  'Tis the way o' the
world."  She went back into the inn.

"That furriner chap was hurt more in his temper
than his framework," said Rogers.  "And knowing
what furriners be, I'd keep my weather eye open.
There's too many of 'em in these parts."

"I understand they're servants of Mr. Pratt;
they should be fairly respectable."

"Ay, that's where 'tis.  A gentleman must
do as he likes, and we haven't got nothing to say
to't.  But we think the more.  And I own I was
fair cut up when my sister Molly married the cook;
a little Swiss feller he is."

"We saw him up at the post office a while ago;
the shopwoman inquired after your sister, I
remember."

"And well she might.  I never see the girl
nowadays; girl, I say, but she's gone thirty, old
enough to know better.  By all accounts Rod's
uncommon clever at the vittles, and the crew
down yonder be living on the fat of the land, while
the skipper's a-dandering round in furren parts."

"Mr. Pratt's away from home, then?"

"Ay sure.  He haven't been seen a good while,
and 'tis just like him to go off sudden-like.  You'd
expect he'd be tired of it at his time o' life, but 'tis
once a wanderer, always a wanderer.  Well, the
evening's getting on, so I won't keep 'ee.  Good
luck, sir."

Warrender rejoined his companions, who had
taken over the boat from the ferryman, and they
were soon floating down on the current.  They
took the narrow channel on the left of the island
which they had avoided on the way up, and found
it less difficult to navigate than it had appeared
at the other end.  The dusk was deepening beneath
the trees, but in a few minutes they discovered a
wide open space that offered more accommodation
than they needed.  Running the boat close to
the shore, they sprang to land, moored to a tree
overhanging the stream, and set to work with a
will to make their preparations for the night.

The clearing was carpeted with long grass,
damp from yesterday's rain, and encircled by
dense undergrowth, thicket, and bramble.  They
pitched the tent in the centre, beat down a stretch
of grass in front of it on which to place the stove
and the bulk of their impedimenta, and by the time
that darkness enwrapped them had everything in
order.  The moon, almost at full circle, had risen
early, and soon, peering over the tree-tops on the
mainland, flung her silver sheen into the enclosure,
whitening the tent to a snowy brilliance and
throwing into strong relief the massed foliage beyond.
A light breeze set the leaves quivering with a
murmurous rustle.  The hour and the scene made
an appeal to Pratt's sentimental soul too strong to
be resisted.  Opening one of the folding chairs, he
lay back in it with crossed legs, gazed up into
the serene, star-flecked heavens, and began with
gentle touches of his strings to serenade the moon.

Warrender, having slipped on his overalls,
kindled a lamp and went down to tinker with
his engine.  Unmusical Armstrong, always accused
by Pratt of being "fit for treasons, stratagems,
and spoils," sauntered, hands in pockets, across
the clearing.  Elbowing his way through the
undergrowth he found, after some fifty or sixty yards,
that the vegetation thinned.  The lesser shrubs
gave way to trees, which grew close together, but
with a regularity that suggested planting on a
definite plan.  Pursuing his way, he came by
and by to a more spacious clearing than the one
he had quitted; and on the left, in the midst of
what had evidently been at one time a small
garden, he saw the shell of a two-storeyed cottage.
The walls were covered with creepers growing in
rank disorder; the windows gaped, empty of glass;
the doorless entrance shaped a rectangle of
blackness; and bare rafters, shaggy with unpruned
ivy, drew parallel lines upon the inky gloom of half
the upper storey.  Ruins, in daylight merely
picturesque, take a new beauty in the cold radiance of
the moon, but present at the same time an image of
all that is desolate and forlorn.  Practical,
unemotional as Armstrong was, he thrilled to the
impression of vacuity and abandonment, and
stood for a while at gaze, as though unwilling to
disturb the loneliness.

Presently, however, he stepped lightly across
the unmown lawn, and the moss-grown path
beyond, and, entering the doorway, struck a
match and looked around.  From the narrow
hall--strewn with fragments of brick and mortar,
broken tiles, heaps of plaster, and here and there
spotted with fungi--sprang the staircase, whole
as to the stairs, but showing gaps in the banisters.
Curling strips of torn discoloured paper hung from
the walls.  The match went out; through the
open roof the stars glimmered.  Deciding to defer
exploration till daylight, lest a tile or brick should
fall on his head, or the staircase give way under
him, Armstrong turned to go out.  As he did so
he was aware of a low moaning sound, such as
a person inside a house may hear when a high
wind soughs under the eaves.  It rose and fell
in cadences eerily mournful, as though the spirit
of solitude itself were lonely and in pain.
Armstrong shivered and sought the doorway, and
as he felt how gentle was the breeze he met, he
wondered at its having power enough to produce
such sounds.  The moaning ceased; he listened
for a moment or two; it did not recur, though the
zephyr had not sensibly dropped.  Puzzled, he
started to retrace his way to the camp.  At the
farther side of the clearing the melancholy sound
once more broke upon his car.  Almost involuntarily
he wheeled round to look back at the cottage;
then, impatient with himself, turned again to
quit the scene.

His feeling, which was neither awe nor timorousness,
but rather a vague discomfort, left him as
soon as his active faculties were again in play.
Pushing his way through the undergrowth, he was
inclined to deride his unwonted susceptibility.
All at once, however, without sound or any other
physical fact to account for it, he was seized with
the fancy that some one was behind him.  Does
every human being move in the midst of an
invisible, intangible aura, that acts as a sixth sense?
Whatever the truth may be, certain it is that
we have all, at one time or another, been conscious
of the proximity of some bodily presence, which
neither sight nor sound nor touch has revealed.

Armstrong swung quickly round, and started,
for there in the thicket, within a dozen yards
of him, a shaft of moonlight struck upon a face,
pallid amidst the green.  It disappeared in a flash.

"Who's there?" called Armstrong, sharply;
then impulsively started forward, parting the
foliage.

There was no answer, nobody to be seen.  Indeed,
within a yard of him the thicket was so dense, so
closely overarched by loftier trees, that no ray of
moonshine percolated into its pitchy blackness.

Holding the branches apart, peering into the
gloom, he listened.  Overhead the leaves softly
rustled; within the thicket there was not a murmur.
He let the branches swing back; stood for a few
moments irresolute; then, with an impatient jerk
of the shoulders, strode away towards the camp.

Armstrong was not what the pathologist would
call a nervous subject.  His physical courage had
never been questioned; in his healthy life of work
and play his moral courage had never been called
upon; his lack of imagination had saved him from
the tremors and terrors that prey upon the more
highly strung.

To find himself mentally disturbed was a novel
experience; it filled him with a sense of humiliation
and self-contempt; it enraged him.  Thoughts of
Pratt's mocking glee when the tale should be told
made him squirm.  "I say, the old bean's seen
a spook"--he could hear the light, ringing tones of
Pratt's voice, see the bubbling merriment in his
large, round eyes.  "I swear it *was* a face!"
he angrily told himself.  "Dashed if I don't come
in daylight and hunt for the fellow--some tramp,
I expect, who finds a lodging gratis in the ruins."

By the time he reached the camp he had made
up his mind to say nothing about the incident.
Emerging into the silent clearing, he saw Pratt
and Warrender side by side on their chairs, fast
asleep, the latter with folded arms and head on
breast, the former holding his banjo across his
knees, his face, the image of placid happiness,
upturned to the sky.  Apparently the swish of
Armstrong's boots through the long grass penetrated
to the slumbering consciousness of the sleepers.
Warrender lifted his head, unclosed his eyes for a
moment, muttered "Hallo!" and slept again.
Pratt, without moving, looked lazily through
half-shut eyelids.

"'O moon of my delight, who know'st no
wane!'" he murmured.  "Well, old bean, seen
the spook?"

"Rot!" growled Armstrong.

"I believe you have!" cried Pratt, starting
up, his face kindling.  "What's she like?"

"Ass!"

"Well, what *did* you see?  You don't, as a
rule, snap for nothing.  I'll say that for you.
Only cats will scratch you for love.  What's
upset the apple-cart?"

"I saw the ruined cottage, if you want to
know--a ghastly rotten hole.  I'm dead tired--I'm
going to turn in."

"All right, old chap; you shall have a lullaby."  He
struck an arpeggio.

   |   "Sing me to sleep, the shadows fall;
   |   Let me forget the world and all;
   |   Lone is my heart, the day is long;
   |   Would it were come to evensong!
   |   Sing me to sleep, your hand in mine----"
   |

Armstrong had fled into the tent.

"I say, Warrender," murmured Pratt, nudging
the somnolent form at his side, "something's put
the old sport in a regular bait."

"Eh?" returned Warrender, drowsily.

"Armstrong's got the pip.  Never knew him
like this.  Something's curdled the milk."

"Well, it's time to turn in," said Warrender,
rising and stretching himself.  "He'll be all right
in the morning.  Good-night."

"Same to you.  I suppose I must follow you,
but it's so jolly under this heavenly moon."

And Warrender, undressing within the tent,
smiled as he heard the lingerer's pleasant voice.

   |   "Dark is life's shore, love, life is so deep:
   |   Leave me no more, but sing me to sleep."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE GAME BEGINS`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center medium

   THE GAME BEGINS

.. vspace:: 2

For all his loquacity, his gamesomeness of
temper, Pratt was not without a modicum of
discretion.  Next morning, when they had taken their
swim and were preparing breakfast, he did not
revive the subject of spooks, or make any allusion to
Armstrong's ill-humour.  Armstrong, for his part,
always at his best in the freshness of the early hours,
had thrown off the oppression of the night, and
appeared his cheerful, vigorous, rather silent self.

"You fellows," said Warrender, as they devoured
cold sausages and a stale loaf, "after I've
overhauled the engine, I think of pulling up stream in
the dinghy and getting some new bread at the
village----"

"Rolls, if you can," Pratt interpolated.

"And some butter and cheese, etcetera.  Now
we're on this island, we may as well explore it.
You can do that while I'm away."

"And hand you a neatly written report of our
discoveries.  All right, Mr. President."

"I shan't be gone more than about a couple
of hours."

"Unless you get another tinkering job.  By
the way, why not call at old Crawshay's, and ask
if she got home safe?  I think that would be a
very proper thing to do, and the old buffer would
appreciate it.  Good for evil, you know; coals
of fire; turning the other cheek, and all that."

"You can turn your own cheek, Percy.  You've
got enough of it."

"Do you allude to my facial rotundity, which
is Nature's gift, or to my urbanity of manner,
my----"

"Dry up, man.  It's too early in the morning
for fireworks.  So long."

Pratt gave a further proof of his tact when
he started with Armstrong on their tour of
exploration.  Instead of striking southward, in the
direction of the ruins, he set off to the north-west.
"The island's so small," he reflected, "that we
are bound to work round to that cottage, and
then----"

Daylight showed the undergrowth dense indeed,
but not so impenetrable as it had seemed overnight.
At the cost of a few scratches from bramble bushes
laden with ripening blackberries, they pushed their
way through to the western shore, overlooking
the broader channel and the right bank of the river;
then they turned south, zigzagging to find the
easiest route.

Hitherto, except for the whirr of a bird, or the
scurry of some small animal, they had neither
seen nor heard anything betokening that the island
had any other visitors than themselves.  But not
long after their change of course they came to a
spot where the grass had recently been trampled.

"Oh, poor Robinson Crusoe!" hummed Pratt.

"Here's a wire snare," exclaimed Armstrong.
"Some one's rabbiting."

"Very likely Siren Rush," Pratt returned.
"It wasn't original malice that prompted him to
warn us against the island, but a sophisticated
fear of competition.  I dare say he made tons
of money out of rabbits in the lean time during
the war; skinned them and the shop people too!"

Armstrong let this pass; the face he had seen
for a brief moment overnight had not recalled
the leering countenance of the poacher.

They went on, skirted the southern shore, and
turned northward.  Presently Pratt caught a
glimpse through the trees of the roof of the ruined
cottage.  He did not mention it, but struck to
the right towards the narrow channel, and led the
way as close as possible to its brink.  A minute
or two later, in a shallow indentation of the shore,
they discovered the remains of a small pier or
landing-stage.  The planks had rotted or broken
away; only a few moss-covered piles and
cross-stretchers were left, still, after what must have
been many years, defying the destructive energy of
the stream that swirled around them.  Through
the channel, at this spot contracted to half its
average width, the swollen river poured with the
force of a millrace.

"The old chap kept a boat, evidently," said
Pratt.  "There ought to be a path from here
to the house, but there's no sign of one.  Let's
strike inland, and see if we can trace it somewhere."

They pushed through the thicket, here as closely
tangled as anywhere else, and emerging suddenly
into the wilderness garden, in which perennial
plants were stifling one another, they saw the ruined
cottage before them.

"Jolly picturesque," said Pratt, halting.  "I
dare say distance lends enchantment to the view;
no doubt it's a pretty dismal place inside; but the
sunlight makes a gorgeous effect with those old
walls.  The creepers running over warm red
bricks--it's a harmony of colour, old man.  I'd like
to make a sketch of it."

"Houses were built to be lived in," grunted
Armstrong.

Pratt made no reply at once.  For the moment
the schoolboy was sunk in the artist.  He let
his eyes linger on the spectacle--the broken roof;
the one gable that here survived; the creepers
straggling round it and over the glassless window
of the room beneath; the heap of shattered brick-work
at the base, half-clothed with greenery and
gay with flowers.

"Of course, it looked very different by moonlight,"
he said at last.  "You'd lose all the colour.
Still----"

"I saw it from the other side," said Armstrong.
"That won't please you so much--it's not so much ruined."

"Well, let's go and see."

He was leading through the riot of untended
flowers, Armstrong close behind him, when he
stopped suddenly, and in a tone of voice
involuntarily subdued, asked--

"Did you see that?"

.. _`"'DID YOU SEE THAT?'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-052.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "'DID YOU SEE THAT?'"

   "'DID YOU SEE THAT?'"


"What?" said Armstrong, starting in spite
of himself.

"A figure--something--I don't know; at the
back of the room."

The sunlight, slanting from the south-east,
shone full upon the cottage, but left the back
of one of the rooms on the ground floor shadowed
by the screen of creepers falling over the gaping
window.

"Well, suppose there was, why the mysterious
whisper?" said Armstrong, his own doubts and
remembered tremors disposing him to ridicule
Pratt's excitement.  "Why shouldn't there be
some one there?  *We* are here--why not others?"

"Yes, but--well, I didn't expect it.  Perhaps
you did."

"It may have been only the shadow of the
creeper on the wall."

"It may have been your grandmother!  Let's
get into the place and have a look round.
The window's too high to climb; is the door open?"

"There's no door."

"So much the better.  Come on."

They hastened to the front, and through the
doorway into the hall.  The house was silent
as a tomb.  On either side opened a doorless
room.  They entered the one on the right--that
in which Pratt had believed he saw a moving
figure.  It was pervaded by a subdued greenish
sunlight, becoming misty by reason of the dust
their footsteps had stirred up.  It held neither
person nor thing.  They crossed to the opposite
room, which, being out of the sunshine, was in
deep gloom.  This, too, was empty.  Passing the
staircase they arrived at the back premises, a
stone-flagged kitchen and scullery.  Both were
bare; even the grate had been removed.

"Now for upstairs," said Pratt.  "They've
made a clean sweep down here."

They mounted the staircase, at first treading
carefully, then with confident steps as they found
that the creaking stairs were sound.  There were
four rooms on the upper storey, two of them exposed
to the sky.  Of these the floors were thick with
blown leaves, twigs, birds' feathers, fragments of
tiles and bricks, broken rafters, and the debris
of the ceiling.  The other two, roofed and whole,
were as bare as the rooms below.  Through the
empty casement of one they caught sight of the
tower in the grounds of Mr. Ambrose Pratt's house,
and the upper windows and roof of the house
itself.  Pratt's appreciative eye was instantly
seized by the prospect--the foreground of low
thicket; the glistening stream; the noble trees
beyond, springing out of a waving sea of
sun-dappled bracken; the gentle slope on whose
summit stood the buildings, and in the far
background the rolling expanse of purple moorland.
For the moment he forgot the shadowy figure
he had seen, and lingered as if unwilling to miss
one detail of the enchanting landscape.

"There's no one here," said Armstrong,
matter-of-fact as ever.

"I dare say it was an illusion.  Look how the
sunlight catches the ripples, Jack.  And did you
see that kingfisher flash between the banks?"

"I'll go and have another look downstairs,"
Armstrong responded.  "I'll give you a call if
I find anything."

He felt, as he went down, that perhaps he
would have done better to be candid with Pratt.
Why make any bones about an incident capable,
no doubt, of a simple explanation?  The tramp,
if tramp he was, had, of course, the objection
of his kind to being found on enclosed premises,
even though they were a ruin.  Yet it was strange
that he had left no tracks--had he not?  Armstrong
was suddenly aware of something that had hitherto
escaped him.  There was no dust, no litter on the
stairs.  Singular phenomenon in a long-deserted
house!  And surely the floor of the room in which
Pratt now stood, unlike the other floors, was clear.
It, and the staircase, must have been swept.
Why?  Not for tidiness--no tramp would bother
about that.  For what, then?  Secrecy?  Dusty
floors would leave tell-tale marks--and with the
thought Armstrong hurried down to the room in
which the figure had been seen, and examined the
floor.  Yes! besides the footprints of himself
and Pratt between door and window, there were
others along the wall at the back of the room.  The
fellow must have slipped out with the speed of a
hare.  Armstrong perceived at once the clumsiness
of the attempt at secrecy, for the very fact that
some of the floors were swept gave the game away.
At the same time, he was puzzled to account for
the man's motive.  The island was deserted; it
was no longer the scene of picnics; the villagers
avoided it; why then should a casual visitor--for
there was no evidence of continuous occupation--be
at the pains even to try to cover up his
movements?  The strange oppression of the previous
night returned upon Armstrong's mind, and he
roamed about the lower floor in a mood of curious
expectancy.

He came once more to the kitchen, and noticed
that between it and the scullery was a closed
door--the only door that remained in the house.
Instinctively bracing himself, he turned the handle;
the door opened, disclosing a dark hole and a
downward flight of stone steps.  He went down into
the darkness, at the foot of the steps struck a match,
and found himself in a low, spacious cellar, empty
except for a strewing of coal dust.  As the match
flickered out he caught sight of something white
in a corner.  Striking another, he crossed the floor
and picked up a jagged scrap of paper, slightly
brown along one edge.  At the same moment he
observed a little heap of paper ashes.

Throwing down the match he trod upon it,
and turned, intending to examine the paper in
the daylight above.  Pratt's voice shouting, and
a sound of some one leaping down the staircase
to the hall, caused him to spring up the steps two
at a time.

"What's up?" he shouted back, unable to
distinguish Pratt's words.

He reached the hall just in time to see Pratt
dash through the doorway and sprint at
headlong pace towards the river.  Stuffing the paper
into his pocket, Armstrong doubled after him.
Pratt was already plunging into the thicket,
and, when Armstrong came within sight of the
channel, the other had flung off his cap and blazer,
and was diving into the stream.

.. _`"THE OTHER WAS DIVING INTO THE STREAM"`:

.. figure:: images/img-059.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "THE OTHER WAS DIVING INTO THE STREAM."

   "THE OTHER WAS DIVING INTO THE STREAM."


"What mad trick----"

He cut short his exclamation, for his long strides
had brought him to the pier, and he saw the cause
of Pratt's desperate haste.  The motor-boat,
broadside to the stream, was drifting down the channel.
Already it was some thirty yards beyond the spot
where Pratt had taken the water, and Pratt was
swimming after it with the ease of a water-rat.

Feeling that there was no reason why himself
should get soaked too, Armstrong forged his
way through the vegetation at the brink of the
channel, but made slow progress compared with
the swimmer.  Pratt was rapidly overhauling the
boat.  Watching him, instead of his own steps,
Armstrong tripped over a creeper, and fell headlong.
By the time he had picked himself up, Pratt had
disappeared.  Armstrong's momentary anxiety was
banished by the sight of the boat moving slowly
in towards the shore of the island.

"Good man," he shouted.  "You headed it
off splendidly."

Pushing and swimming, Pratt was evidently
making strenuous efforts to drive the boat into
the bank before the current swept it past the island.
If he failed, Armstrong saw that he would have
to change his tactics and run it ashore on the left
bank--his uncle's property.  It would then be
necessary for Armstrong to swim across, for Pratt
had never taken the trouble to learn the working
of the engine.

"Stick it, old man," he called.

In a few moments more Pratt contrived to
edge the boat among the low branches of an
overhanging tree.  Its downward progress thus partly
checked, he was able to exert more force in the
shoreward direction.  When Armstrong, after a
rough scramble, arrived at the spot, he had just
rammed the boat's nose securely into a tangled
network of branches, and was clambering, a
dripping, bedraggled object, up the bank.

A prolonged "Coo-ee!" sounded from far
up the river.

"There's old Warrender, shrieking like a
bereaved hen," said Pratt, shaking himself.  "And
it's all through his not tying the thing up properly!
Armstrong, water is very wet."

"I say, did you ever know Warrender not
tie it up properly?"

"How else would it break away?"

"You didn't see it break away?"

"No, you can't see our camping-place from
the ruins.  It was a good way down before I caught
sight of it."

"Well, they've kicked off; the game's begun!"

"What on earth do you mean?"

"Wring yourself dry, and we'll talk."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A SCRAP OF PAPER`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center medium

   A SCRAP OF PAPER

.. vspace:: 2

Pratt had just stripped off his clothes, and
spread them to dry, when Warrender arrived
in the dinghy.

"What's the game, you chaps?" he inquired.
"Why a second bath, Pratt?"

"Eyes left!" responded Pratt.  "The sight
of my habiliments basking in the sunlight will
inform you that I have just been performing a
cinema stunt--plunging fully clothed into the
boiling torrent to rescue the heroine, whom the
villain----"

"Dry up!" said Armstrong.

"Just what I am trying to do.  But you are
bursting with information, old chap.  Expound.
I am all ears."

"You tied up the boat as usual, Warrender?"
Armstrong asked.

"Of course.  Why?"

"Pratt saw her drifting down the stream, that's
all, and had to dive in to prevent her getting right
past the island."

"That's rum," said Warrender.  "The knot
couldn't have worked loose.  Who's been monkeying
with her?"

"That's the point," said Armstrong.  "There's
some one else on the island, and whoever it is,
wants the place to himself.  Setting the boat
adrift seemed to him a first step to driving us away,
which shows he is a juggins."

"Q.E.D.," said Pratt.  "Now the corollary,
if you please."

"Wait a bit," Warrender interposed.  "It
may be only a stupid practical joke--the sort
of thing the intelligence of that poacher fellow
might rise to."

"It may be, of course," returned Armstrong,
"but I think it's more.  You remember what
Miss Crawshay and the people at the inn told
us about the island being haunted, you know?
Well, rumours of that sort are just what might
be set going by some one who has reasons of his
own for keeping people away.  It may be Rush;
we found a rabbit-snare this morning; but if it
is, there's some one else in the game.  Last night,
as I was returning to camp, I saw a face in the
thicket, just for a moment; it was gone in a flash;
but it wasn't Rush's face; it was a different type
altogether."

"Why on earth didn't you tell us?" asked
Warrender.

"Well, I might have been mistaken; moonlight
plays all sorts of tricks; besides----"

"Just so, old man," said Pratt.  "Are there
visions abroad?  The witching hour of night----"

"Let's keep to cold fact," Warrender put in.
"You saw a face, and it wasn't Rush's; but Rush
lied to us about the island to keep us off it;
therefore Rush and some unknown person are in league.
What next?"

"Pratt saw some one in one of the rooms of
the ruined cottage as we approached it an hour
or so ago.  We hunted through the place, but
couldn't find any one.  I noticed one strange
fact: that while some of the rooms are thick with
dust, the staircase and one of the rooms upstairs
are pretty clear, although there's no sign whatever
of anybody living there.  There's not a stick of
furniture.  What is the cottage used for?"

"Is there anything particular about the
upstairs room?" Warrender asked.

"Nothing that I could see," replied Armstrong.

"Except that it gives a magnificent view,"
Pratt added.  "You can see my uncle's grounds,
and up and down the river.  It was when I was
looking out of the window that I saw the boat
adrift."

"Well, I think I'll have a look at the place,"
said Warrender, "and if you'll take my advice,
Percy, you'll go up in the dinghy, get into dry
togs, and give an eye to the camp."

"Righto!  There ought to be some one at
home to receive callers.  You'll be back to lunch,
I suppose?"

Warrender nodded, and strode off with Armstrong
towards the ruins.  Together they explored
the house from roof to cellar, seeking, not for an
inhabitant, but for some clue to the puzzle suggested
by the partly cleared floors.  No discovery
rewarded them.  It was not until they were
inspecting the cellar that Armstrong remembered the
scrap of paper he had picked up there.  Taking
it out of his pocket when they returned to daylight,
he handed it to Warrender.

"Is it Greek?" he asked.

"No," replied Warrender.  "I fancy it's
Russian; a scrap torn from a Russian newspaper,
by the look of it.  Pretty old, too, judging by the
colour."

"I don't know.  It's brown at the edge, but
that's due to the scorching it got when the other
papers were burned.  It's fairly clean everywhere
else.  You can't read it, then?"

"Not a word; how should I?  Russian's a
modern language; belongs more to your side
than mine.  Besides, what if I could?  A
newspaper wouldn't tell us anything."

"Very likely not.  But a Russian newspaper
would hardly be in the possession of anybody
but a Russian, and what was a Russian ever doing here?"

"Ah!  I think I see daylight.  What if it
belonged to one of what Pratt calls his uncle's
menagerie of foreigners?  They might come here
in their off times.  There's nothing very wonderful
about it after all; but as there's nothing valuable
in the ruins, they can't have any object in trying
to keep us out.  My belief is that that fellow Rush
set the boat drifting out of sheer mischief, and we'd
better keep our eye on him."

On leaving the ruins it occurred to Armstrong
to examine the surroundings more narrowly than
he had yet done.  The flower-beds and the
moss-grown path in the direction of the jetty showed
the impress of his own and Pratt's feet, but another
path, which they had not trodden, also bore slight
marks of use.  Following it up with Warrender,
he found that it led to a narrow track through the
undergrowth, leading southward almost in a straight
line.  In single file they made their way along
this, and came presently to a shallow indentation
in the western shore, near its southern end.

"Pratt and I must have crossed this track a
while ago," said Armstrong; "but I didn't notice
it, and I'm sure he didn't."

"Look here," said Warrender, who had bent
down to examine the grass and shrubs growing
on the low bank.  "Wouldn't you say that a
boat had been run in?  In fact, it's been drawn
up on to the bank.  Here's a distinct mark of
the keel--a small rowing-boat, I should think."

"Not very recent, is it?"

"But certainly not very ancient, or it wouldn't
be so distinct.  It's on Crawshay's arm of the
river, though.  D'you know, Armstrong, I shouldn't
be surprised if it turns out we're a set of jackasses.
I dare say the place teems with rabbits, and there
are plenty of fellows besides Rush who'd be glad
of getting their dinner for nothing, and would want
to keep other people out of their preserves.  Let's
be getting back."

On arriving at their encampment they took
the precaution of drawing the bow of the motorboat
well on to the bank, and securing it firmly
to a stout sapling.  The dinghy, which Pratt had
tied to a projecting root, they carried ashore, and
placed behind the tent.

Pratt was sitting on his chair, tuning his banjo.

"You perceive I have not been idle," he said.
"You couldn't have carried the dinghy with such
agile ease if I hadn't emptied her first.  Your
marketing was a success, Warrender?"

"Yes, I got everything we wanted except petrol.
By the way, Pratt, there's a rival troubadour in
the village."

"I say!  Surely not a banjo?"

"A banjo it is, and the player is no other than
that general dealer fellow--what's his name?
Blevins.  I went up to the shop to get a can of
petrol, and heard the tum-ti-tum and a tenor
voice as good as your own----"

"Don't crush me quite!"

"Warbling one of your own songs out of the
open window above the shop--'Love me and the
world is mine.'  Really it might have been you,
only the fellow has a little more of what you call
the tremolo, don't you?"

"Vibrato--if you want to know.  But hang it!
The glory is departed.  Another banjo, another
tenor--and singing my songs!  Pity we're not
in Spain."

"Why on earth?" asked Armstrong.

"Because then we'd meet on some delicious
moonlit night under the window of some fair
senorita, and after trying to sing each other down
like a couple of cats, we'd have a bit of a turn-up,
and I'd have a chance to show I'm the better man.
But how do you know it was the general dealer?
It might have been some fair swain as comely as
myself."

"I'll tell you.  I went into the shop, and asked
the sheepish young fellow there for one of the cans
of petrol I saw against the wall.  He declared they
were all for Mr. Pratt at the Red House.  There
were at least half a dozen, and I protested that
Mr. Pratt couldn't possibly want them all at once,
and insisted on his fetching his employer.  The
singing had been going on all the time.  It stopped
a couple of seconds after the fellow had gone into
the house, and the man Blevins came into the
shop.  It's a fair deduction that he and the singer
were one."

"It is, it is," murmured Pratt, mournfully,
throwing a glance across the river.

"What *are* you squinting at?" asked Armstrong.
"I've noticed you several times; what's there to
look at?"

"There's me," replied Pratt, quickly.  "Look
at me, old chap, or at any rate, don't look that
way; tell you why presently.  Well, what about
old Blevins, Warrender?  My hat! what a name
for a light tenor!"

"I asked him for one can to go on with.  He
was very polite--oily, in fact;--regretted extremely
that he couldn't oblige me; the whole supply had
been ordered for Mr. Pratt, and he daren't offend
so good a customer."

"But I thought my uncle was away from home."

"Of course.  Why didn't I remember that?
Anyhow, while he was talking, in came that little
foreign chauffeur we saw yesterday--an Italian,
I fancy: he talked just like those Italian waiters
at Gatti's.  He had come to order a car; said
that Mr. Pratt's car had broken down, and he had
had to tow it to Dartmouth for repairs.  He'd
keep Blevins's car until the repairs were done.
Blevins was a bit offhand with me after that.  I
suppose it was the regular tradesman's attitude
to a less important customer.  Anyhow, he told me
rather bluntly that I couldn't have any petrol till
to-morrow, and I came away."

"Quite right.  You couldn't argue with a fellow
who sucks up to my uncle, and sings my songs.
I say, I think I shall go in for diplomacy.  Don't
you think I'd make a first-class attaché, or whatever
they call 'em?"

Astonished at the sudden change of subject,
they looked at him.  He winked.

"You know," he went on--"one of those fellows
in foreign capitals whose job it is to see and hear
everything, and look innocent, while inside they're
as wily as the cunningest old serpent.  Your
chronicle of Blevins is very small beer, Warrender;
and while you've been yarning on about your old
petrol, I've been corking myself up with something
vastly more interesting, and you hadn't the least
notion of it.  That's why I'm sure I'd make no
end of a hit in the diplomatic corps.  Just keep your
eyes fixed on my goodly countenance, will you? and
I'll enlighten your understanding."

He took up his banjo, which he had laid across
his knees, struck a note or two, then proceeded--

"After I'd changed, and carried up your
purchases, I sat me down to beguile the tedium of
waiting for you with my unfailing resource.
Happening to glance across the river, I caught
sight of some one watching me from the thick of
a shrub, and my lively imagination conjured up
the goose-flesh sensations of old Armstrong last
night.  With that presence of mind which will
serve me well in my climb up the diplomatic ladder
to a peerage, I hummed a stave of 'Somewhere
a voice is calling,' and turned my head away with
the grace of a peacefully browsing gazelle; but
the fellow's been watching me for the last half-hour,
and I bet he doesn't know he's been spotted.
Armstrong, you've got the best eyes.  While I go on
gassing, just look round as if you were jolly well
bored stiff--no, I've a better idea; go into the tent,
and take a squint through that small tear on the
side facing the river, and fix your eyes on the shrub--I
fancy it's a lilac past its prime--that fills the
space between two beeches in the background.
I don't flatter myself that the fellow was attracted
by my dulcet strains, and if he's watching me, you
may be sure he's watching all of us."

Armstrong got up, thrust his hands into his
trousers pockets, and strolled nonchalantly into
the tent.  In a couple of minutes he returned in
the same unconcerned way.

"You're right," he said, drawing up his chair
beside Pratt's.  "I saw a slight movement among
the leaves, and a face.  I'm not quite sure, but I
believe it's that poacher fellow.  It's certainly
not the face I saw last night."

"Well, now, what interest do you suppose Siren
Rush takes in us?  And what's he doing in my
uncle's grounds?  D'you think my uncle's a bit
potty, and sets Rush to keep watch like a warder
on a tower?  Is he afraid of some one squatting
on his land in his absence?  I don't suppose we're
far wrong in accusing Rush of setting the boat
adrift, but what's his motive in watching us?
It's not mere curiosity; but if not curiosity, what is it?"

"We must wait and see," said Warrender.

"That's very prudent, but it promises poor
sport," Pratt rejoined.  "By the way, I suppose
you didn't find anything fresh in the ruins?"

"Nothing.  But Armstrong picked up a scrap
of paper in the cellar this morning--a bit of a
Russian newspaper.  Hand it over, Armstrong."

"No," said Pratt, quickly.  "Don't show it.
I don't suppose Siren Rush can read Russian any
more than I can; the paper can't be his, but he'd
better not see us examining anything.  Where
did you find it, Armstrong?"

"In the cellar, by a heap of paper ash."

"Incriminating documents, as they say in the
police courts.  But why Russian?  Look here,
I know a man in London who reads Russian; he
seems to like it.  Give me the paper presently.
We'll go into the village this afternoon and post
it to him.  I can't see how it will throw any light
on things here, but we can at least get it translated.
And now, let's have lunch."





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.. _`TIN-TACKS`:

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   CHAPTER VII


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   TIN-TACKS

.. vspace:: 2

That night, Warrender was unusually wakeful.
As a rule he slept as soundly as his companions;
but now and then, when he had anything on his
mind, he wooed sleep in vain.  The strange
incidents of the past two days had affected him more,
psychologically, than either of the others.
Armstrong, as soon as his doubts were removed, would
suffer no more mental disturbance until something
fresh, outside his experience, again upset his balance;
while Pratt was one of those happy souls to whom
life itself is a perpetual joy, and events only the
changing patterns of a kaleidoscope.

Envying the two placid forms stretched on
either side of him, Warrender was trying to grope
his way through the labyrinth of mystery in which
they seemed to have been caught, when he was
surprised by a sudden slight rattling sound upon
the tent, like the patter of small hailstones; it
ceased in a second or two.  The night had been
fine, without any warning of a change of weather;
the air was still; it seemed strange that a storm
could have risen so rapidly, without a premonitory
wind.  His companions had evidently not been
awakened.  Moving carefully, so as not to disturb
them, he crept across to the flap of the tent, and
looked out.  The stars glittered in a vault of
unbroken blue; the tree-tops were silvered by the
sinking moon; not a wisp of cloud streaked the
firmament.

There was no repetition of the sound, and
Warrender, thinking that he must, after all, have been
dreaming, returned to his sleeping-bag.  As often
happens in cases of insomnia, the slight exertion
of walking had the effect of inducing sleep, and he
woke no more until morning.

Armstrong, as usual the first to rise, clutched
his towel, and sallied forth barefoot for his dip.
He had no sooner passed into the open, however,
than he uttered what, with some exaggeration
Pratt called a fiendish yell.  Hurrying out to
learn the cause of it, the others saw him standing
on one foot and rubbing the sole of the other.

"Which of you blighters dropped a tin-tack
here?" he asked.

"Got a puncture, old man?" said Pratt,
sympathetically.  "Your skin's pretty tough, luckily.
Now, if it had been me--ough!"

.. _`"'GOT A PUNCTURE, OLD MAN?'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-073.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "'GOT A PUNCTURE, OLD MAN?'"

   "'GOT A PUNCTURE, OLD MAN?'"


He, too, hopped on one foot, and crooked the
other leg, his face contorted for a moment out of its
wonted cherubic calm.

"Told you so," he cried, picking a blue tack
from between his toes.  "I'm a very sensitive plant,
I can tell you.  I see blood.  Warrender, I'd have
yours if you weren't such a thundering big lout."

"Not guilty," said Warrender, who had prudently
stood still.  "You had better both come and put
your boots on.  We haven't any tacks in our
outfit, so--I say!"

"What do you say?" said Pratt.

"Last night I heard a sound like a sharp shower
of rain or hail on the tent.  Just wait till I pull
my boots on."

In half a minute he was out again, shod, and
began to examine the grass around the tent.

"As I thought," he said.  "There's a regular
battalion of the beastly things; another trick
of that blackguard Rush, no doubt.  He's trying
frightfulness."

"I'll wring his neck if I catch him," cried
Armstrong.

"No, you don't, my son," said Pratt.  "The
law would say 'neck for neck,' I'm afraid.  I
shouldn't object to your blacking his eyes.  But
when you come to think of it, perhaps Rush isn't
the culprit after all.  We've never seen him on
this side of the channel.  It may have been the
other fellow."

"What's clear is that some one is making a
dead set at us," said Warrender, "and I don't
like it.  It will mean our moving camp."

"You surely won't let this sort of thing drive
you away?" said Armstrong.

"What's to be done, then?  They first monkey
with the boat--by Jove! they may have cut her
loose again."

"No, I spy her nose," said Pratt.  "They
believe in variety, evidently.  But I quite agree
with you.  We shall always have to leave one
on guard, and that will spoil the trio.  Two's
company, three's fun.  All the same, the position
is so jolly interesting that I shouldn't like to go
right away and leave the mystery unsolved--I
mean their objection to our company.  We
haven't had the cold shoulder anywhere else;
and here, first old Crawshay, then these unknown--look
here, you fellows, I vote we take the job up
in earnest, and get to the bottom of it.  It will
alter the Arcadian simplicity of our holiday, but
for my part I'd risk any amount of brain fag over
a good jigsaw puzzle like this."

"We'll think it over," said Warrender.  "The
principal thing is not to lose my boat, and the
hundred odd pounds she cost."

On their way down to the river, Pratt espied
a greyish object sticking in a bush.  Shaking it
down, he picked up a broken cardboard box on
which was printed a description of "Best quality
tin-tacks: British made."

"A clue!" he cried.  "Sherlock Holmes would
have built a whole theory on this.  I don't think
I was cut out for diplomacy after all.  Criminal
investigation is my forte.  I'll go down to remote
posterity as the most brilliant detective of this
Pratt lost no time in taking a first step in his
new career.  At breakfast Warrender suggested
that the tent had better be removed from its
surrounding of tacks, which were too numerous to be
easily collected.

"Very well," said Pratt.  "You and Armstrong
are the hefty men.  You won't want my help,
so I'll scull the dinghy up to the ferry, and start
my investigations."

"Don't talk too much," said Armstrong.

"My dear chap, speech was given us to conceal
thought.  There's an art, some ancient said, in
concealing art, and I bet I'd say more and tell less
than any old Prime Minister that ever lived."

Leaving the dinghy in charge of the ferryman,
he smiled a greeting to Rogers, the innkeeper,
whose jolly face he caught sight of at the window,
walked on to the village, and entered the general
dealer's shop.

"Fine morning," he said to the aproned youth
in attendance.  "D'you happen to have any
tenpenny nails?"

"We've got some nails three a penny, sir."

"No good at all.  You couldn't hang a pirate
on one of those, I'm sure.  I suppose the tenpenny
nail has gone out of fashion, but perhaps you
have some tin-tacks.  I dare say they'll do as
well."

"Ay, we've got some tin-tacks--two sorts, white
and blue."

"Not red?"

"No; I don't know as ever I seed 'em red."

"Well, I particularly wanted red; they don't
show their blushes, you know.  If you haven't,
you haven't.  I'll try blue; they won't look any
bluer however hard you hit 'em."  The assistant,
staring at him like an amazed ox, handed him a
box.  "Yes," he went on, "now I look at them,
I couldn't wish for better.  They're a most
admirable shade of blue, and exactly match my Sunday
socks.  I don't suppose there's much demand for
'em; my hosier assured me my socks were a very
special line, so, of course, there couldn't be many
people wanting tacks of that colour.  I dare say
you haven't sold a box of these since last season."

"Ah, but we have," said the simple youth,
catching at something at last within his
comprehension.  "Only yesterday one of they furriners
up at Red House bought three boxes."

"You don't say so!  What an appetite he must
have!  I suppose it was that big fellow who talks
through his nose?  He wears a red waistcoat,
so I dare say he has blue socks."

"It warn't him.  He's the groom.  'Twas the
gardener chap."

"Of course.  What was I thinking of?  He
wanted them to tack up his vines.  They wouldn't
be any good for horse-shoes, and there's no question
of socks at all.  You needn't wrap it up, the box
won't catch cold in my pocket.  Sixpence ha'penny?
Dirt cheap.  I think they're worth quite a guinea
a box, but you daren't charge that, of course, or
they would haul you up as profiteers.  Thanks so much."

He had noticed that the full box exactly matched
the broken one taken from the bush.

Elated at the success of his first move, Pratt
returned at once to the camp.

"You're soon back," said Warrender.  "Changed
your mind again?"

"Not a bit.  I'm inclined to think diplomats
and detectives are of one kidney.  I've been
magnificently diplomatic, and I've made a
discovery."

"Well?"

"My old uncle's as mad as a hatter!"

"A family failing," Armstrong remarked.  "But
what's that to do with it?"

"Why, this, old tomato.  He employs a lot
of foreigners; that's mad, to begin with.  He
goes away, and leaves them in the house with
instructions to sow tin-tacks on No Man's Island.
If that isn't stark madness, I'd like to know what is."

"Hadn't you better tell us plainly what you've
been about?" said Warrender.

"In words of one syllable.  I bought a box
of tin-tacks.  Here it is, and here's the one we
found in the bush.  You see, they're twins.  They
were bought at the same shop, to wit, the one
owned by Samuel Blevins, general dealer and
banjoist, I understand.  My uncle's gardener
bought three yesterday.  Now, I ask you, would
any man's gardener sprinkle inoffensive campers
with tin-tacks unless instructed to?  It's all as
plain as a pikestaff.  My mad uncle has a morbid
horror of trespassers.  He leaves word that they
are to be chevied away by means fair or foul----"

"But No Man's Island isn't his," Warrender
interrupted.

"Certainly.  That proves his madness.  He
thinks anybody who gets a footing here has designs
on his property.  It's a sort of Heligoland.  He
employs an ex-poacher to guard his own domains,
and the foreigners to clear his outpost.  Nothing
could be plainer."

"Rot!" exclaimed Armstrong.

"Have it your own way.  The facts are undeniable.
Rush and the foreigners are in league to
get rid of us, and they can't have any motive
except their master's interest."

"We don't know that," said Warrender.  "Your
imagination runs too fast, young man.  We don't
even know for certain that Rush and the foreigners
are working together.  All we really know is that
some one wants to make the place too uncomfortable
for us.  The question is, what shall we do?"

"Stick it," said Armstrong.  "It means keeping
watch by night; we can take turns at that.  We'll
soon find out if----"

"Ahoy, there!" cried a voice from the river.

Unperceived, a skiff had run in under the bank,
and its occupant, a stout old gentleman in flannels,
was stepping ashore.

"Old Crawshay!" murmured Pratt.

They got up to meet their visitor.

"Good-morning, my lads," said he, genially.
"Surprised to see me, I dare say.  We didn't part
on the best of terms, but--well, let's shake hands
and forget all about that.  My daughter told me
that you very kindly came to her assistance the
other day.  I'm obliged to you.  I'm only sorry
it didn't happen before we--but there, that's wiped
up, isn't it?  If you knew how I'd been pestered!
By the way, one of you is related to my neighbour
across the river, I understand."

"Yes, sir, that's me," said Pratt.  "We're
not on calling terms, though."

"Neither am I," rejoined Mr. Crawshay, with
a smile.  "We don't hit it together.  He's a
little----"

"Potty, sir," said Pratt, as the old gentleman
caught himself up.  "It's a sore trial to the rest
of the family.  We were only talking about his
distressing affliction just before you came.  He
really ought to be shut up."

"Indeed!  I wasn't aware that it was as bad
as that.  That is certainly very distressing."

"A most unusual form of mania, too.  I never
heard anything like it before.  Of course, there are
people who crab their own country and countrymen,
but it's more talk than anything else.  My poor
uncle, however, goes so far as to employ foreigners,
who stick tin-tacks into people."

"Bless my soul!"

"Pratt draws the long bow, sir," said
Warrender, thinking it time to intervene.

"And hits the bull's-eye every time," Pratt
rejoined.  "You can't deny that twenty yards
away the grass is simply bristling with tin-tacks."

"The fact is, sir," said Warrender, "that some
one is trying to annoy us.  Yesterday morning
our motor-boat was set adrift, and in the night
some one showered a lot of tin-tacks round our
tent.  The motive seems to be the wish to drive
us away.  And Pratt thinks that his uncle gave
instructions to the men at the house to prevent
camping either on his ground or on the island.
They've chosen a very annoying way of going about it."

"Outrageous!  Scandalous!" cried Mr. Crawshay.
"He has no rights on the island.  It's
criminal.  I'm a magistrate, and I'll issue you
a warrant against the ruffians."

"The difficulty is that we haven't caught any
one in the act," Warrender pursued.  "I believe
that warrants can't be anonymous.  We've seen
a fellow named Rush hanging about----"

"A notorious gaol-bird.  I've had my eye on him."

"But the tacks were bought at Blevins's shop
by my uncle's gardener," said Pratt.  "I pumped
that out this morning.  I dare say we could find
out the man's name."

"But it's no crime to buy tin-tacks," said
Warrender.  "We don't know who actually scattered
them.  Indeed, we've no evidence at all; only
inferences."

"Nothing to act on, certainly," said Mr. Crawshay.
"It seems to me you had better cross
the river, and camp on my ground after all; or,
better still, come to the house; I've plenty of room."

"It's jolly good of you, sir," said Warrender,
"but it goes against the grain to knuckle under.
We'd like to catch the fellows, and find out, if
we can, what their game really is.  I don't think
even Pratt believes his uncle is responsible, even
indirectly."

"Not responsible for his actions, unfit to plead,
to be detained during His Majesty's pleasure,"
said Pratt.  "We talked it over, and decided to
stick it, sir.  It's a matter of pride with me.  I'm
thinking of taking up criminal investigation as a
profession."

"Indeed!"

"He's just cackling, sir," said Armstrong,
impelled to utterance at last.

"I suspected as much.  Well, you've made
up your minds, I see.  I understand.  At your
age I should have done the same.  If you want
any help, you've only to row across the river.
My house is about half a mile through the woods
and across a field.  You must come up one day
in any case, and have lunch or dinner with me,
and discuss the situation.  And, by the way, if
you're fond of shooting, my coverts are positively
overstocked.  I can provide guns, and you're
welcome to 'em."

"Many thanks indeed, sir," said Warrender.

"And you'll keep me informed?  I'll take action
the moment you have evidence.  It's atrocious."

They escorted him to his boat, gave him a shove
off, and watched him until he was out of sight.
Returning to the tent, Pratt remarked--

"D. Crawshay seems to be a dashed good sort
after all."





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.. _`PIN-PRICKS`:

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   CHAPTER VIII


.. class:: center medium

   PIN-PRICKS

.. vspace:: 2

Late that afternoon, Warrender and Pratt
started for a spin in the dinghy to the mouth of
the river, intending to return on the tide.  In
accordance with their newly formed plan,
Armstrong remained on guard in the camp.

Just before the scullers gained the river mouth
they overtook a weather-beaten old fisherman
leisurely rowing his heavy tub out to sea.  Pratt
gave him a cheery hail as they came abreast of
him, and learning, in answer to a question, that he
was proceeding to inspect his lobster pots nearly a
mile out, they asked if they might accompany him.

"Ay sure, I've nothing against it," said the old man.

"Nor against us, I hope," rejoined Pratt, smiling.

"Not as I knows on."

"Then we're friends already.  I always make
friends in two seconds and a half, and being, like
Cæsar, constant as the northern star, I stick like a
limpet.  You can't shake me off."

"Same as a lobster when he gets a grip."

"Ah! you know more about lobsters than I do.
Is that a lobster pot on the beach there?"

He indicated a low wooden hut, standing a little
above high-water mark, on the shore curving away
to the east.

"You be a joker, sir," said the fisher, his native
taciturnity thawed.  "That be a fisherman's hut.
Fisherman, says I, but 'tis little fishing as goes on
hereabouts nowadays.  I mind the time when
there was a tidy little fleet in these waters, but that
was long ago.  There was good harbourage in those
days, but the sea have cast up a bar across the
mouth of the river; we're going over it now; and
it makes the passage dangerous for a boat of any
draught.  One or two old gaffers like me goes out
now and again, but 'tis not what it was in my
young days."

"That hut looks a bit dilapidated--is it yours?"

"No, it belongs to Mr. Pratt, up along at the house."

"You don't say so!  I dare say you'll be surprised
to hear it, but it wouldn't be fair to you to
keep it a secret; Mr. Pratt is my uncle."

"Do 'ee tell me that, now?"

"But I hope you won't think any the worse of
me.  It's not my fault--I'm sure you'll admit that."

"Think the worse of 'ee!  I reckon 'tis t'other
way about.  He be my landlord, and a rare good
'un; never raised my rent all the thirty years I've
knowed 'un.  We thinks a rare lot of 'un in village."

"I say, do you mean that?"

"What for not?  He never gives us no trouble,
and if you can say that of the landlord as owns
best part o' the village, you may reckon there ain't
much wrong with 'un.  Not but what he've a bit
of a temper, and can't abide being put upon; but
treat him fair, and he'll treat you fair.  Ay, and
more.  That there hut, now.  It do belong to him,
but I doubt he's never been richer for any rent
paid him for't."

"Who rents it, then?"

"Uses it, I'd say.  Nick Rush never paid no
rent, that I'd swear."

"Siren Rush again, Phil," said Pratt, in an
undertone, to Warrender.  "I thought Rush was
a poacher," he added, to the fisherman.

The old man made no reply.  Pratt guessed
that for some reason or other he was unwilling to
commit himself.

"My uncle, as you say, can't stand being put
upon," he went on.  "Which makes it the more
surprising that he should allow a rascal like Rush
to use his hut rent free.  I wonder he doesn't
turn him out."

"He did, a year or two back," said the fisherman,
tersely.

"That was when Rush went to gaol for poaching,
of course?" said Pratt, with the air of one
who was well acquainted with the circumstances.
"I should have done the same myself.  No one
would be hard on a poor fellow who kept straight,
but when Mr. Crawshay had to sentence him for
poaching, that was the last straw.  But how is it
that he has been allowed to come back?  Has he
turned over a new leaf?"

"The hut was empty for a year or two, and was
falling to pieces," answered the fisherman.  "When
Rush came back to these parts he mended it a
bit, and Mr. Pratt having gone to furrin parts again,
I reckon his secretary didn't think it worth while
to bother about the feller."

"I dare say that was it.  In these days it's not
easy to get rid of an unsatisfactory tenant, I
understand.  But my uncle won't be pleased when
he comes home, I'm sure.  The secretary ought to
know that."

"Ay, and so he would if 'twas an Englishman,
but with these furriners, there's no accountin' for
them.  The village do have a grudge against
Mr. Pratt on that score; the folk don't like 'em.
I feel a bit strong about it myself.  There's my son
Henery, as owns a dairy farm up yonder, was
courting Molly Rogers, sister of Joe at the inn,
afore the war; terrible sweet on she, he was; and
everybody thought, give her time, they'd make a
match of it.  But bless 'ee, afore he was demobbed,
as they call it, these furriners come along, and daze
me if the smallest of 'em weren't Molly's husband
inside of a month.  And to make matters worse,
it do seem as she've cast off all her old friends,
becas nobody sees nothing of her these days.  But
there 'tis; you can't never understand a woman."

The greater part of this conversation took place
while the old man was lifting his lobster pots--the
others lying by.  He went on to give them
information about the coast--where good line-fishing
could be had, rocks where crabs could be picked
up at low tide.  Having bought a couple of lobsters,
Warrender turned the dinghy's head for home.

The sun was going down as they approached
the island.  Near its southern point they met
Rush, slowly pulling a tubby boat down stream.
He did not look at them as they passed; his square
countenance was expressionless.

Rowing straight along the narrow channel to
their camping-place, they lifted the dinghy ashore,
and carried it towards the tent.  Armstrong was
not to be seen.

"The sentry has deserted his post," remarked
Pratt.  "But I dare say he's not far."

He gave a shrill whistle.  An answer came
distantly from the woods, and presently Armstrong
appeared, pushing his way through the thickets on
the western side of the clearing.

"All quiet, old man?" asked Warrender.

"Until a little while ago," Armstrong replied.
"I heard a rustling and crackling in the thicket
yonder.  I couldn't see anything, and for a time
I simply kept on the watch; but it went on so long
that I got sick of doing nothing, and started off
quietly to investigate, and nab the fellow if I could.
But though I couldn't see him, it's clear he could
see me.  What his game was, I don't know; I
only know that I could always hear him moving
some little distance ahead of me, and before I
realised how far I had got, I found myself pretty
near the farther shore.  I just caught a glimpse
of a back among the bushes, but when I got to
the place there was nothing to be seen or heard
either.  It occurred to me then that I'd been
decoyed away while some one played hanky-panky
here, and I cursed myself for an ass and hurried
back, but things look undisturbed."

They glanced around the camp and inspected the
interior of the tent.  Their various properties
appeared to be exactly as they had been left;
nothing was obviously missing.

"I suppose it was another little freak of Siren
Rush," remarked Pratt.  "We met him rowing
down as we came up.  No doubt he was going to
visit his hut on the beach."

He retailed the bits of information derived from
the fisherman, dwelling particularly on the
surprising fact that, "potty" though he might be,
Mr. Ambrose Pratt was respected, and even liked,
by the country folk.

It was not until they began to make preparations
for their evening meal that a new light was cast
on the mysterious movements in the thicket.
Armstrong took their kettle and bucket down to
the river.  Neither would hold water.  Examining
them, he found a hole in the bottom of each, clean
cut as if made by a bradawl.  Meanwhile Pratt had
discovered that their tea was afloat in the caddy,
and the wick had been removed from their stove.

"More pin-pricks," he said.  "Any one would
think the blighters had learnt ragging at a public
school."

"Pin-pricks be hanged!" cried Armstrong,
wrathfully.  "They're much worse than a jolly
good set-to--much more difficult to deal with.  If
they'd come out into the open, we'd jolly well
settle their hash."

The others guessed that Armstrong's anger was
largely due to his own failure as a watchman.

"One thing is clear," said Warrender, considerately.
"Whoever played these tricks, it was not
Rush.  He couldn't possibly have drawn you to
the shore, cut round here and done the damage,
and then got back to his boat and dropped down
stream to where we met him, while you were coming
straight across.  On the other hand, if he had got
into his boat directly after he disappeared, he could
just have done it.  If he was the decoy, who was
the confederate?"

"'Time's glory is to calm contending kings,'"
quoted Pratt, "and among other stupendous feats,
'to wrong the wronger till he render right.'  But
I'm not disposed to leave old Time to his own
unaided resources.  These island Pucks are
decidedly annoying, but they're also uncommonly
interesting.  'Life is a war,' some one said.  Well,
it's to be a war of wits, by the look of it, and I'll
back our wits in the end against sirens or sorcerers,
or any old scaramouch.  Only I'm bound to
confess that up to the present the enemy is several
points up."





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.. _`REPRISALS`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center medium

   REPRISALS

.. vspace:: 2

"What about dividing the night into watches?"
asked Armstrong, when they had cleared away their
evening meal.

"Dark to dawn is about eight hours," responded
Warrender.  "By summer-time, nine to five."

"And three into eight will go with a recurring
decimal," added Pratt.  "I don't mind being the
recurring decimal, which as a matter of practicality
I take to mean that I'll come on every tenth
hour; that is to say, I'll have ten hours' sleep
unbroken, and turn up, fresh as a lark, at seven in
the morning."

"Very ingenious," said Warrender, "but I
prefer my fractions vulgar.  Two-thirds of an hour
is forty minutes, and you'll do your two hours
forty minutes like us two.  We'll start alphabetically,
shall we?  Armstrong first--then the vulgar
fraction, then me."

"I always thought the middleman got the best
of it in life," said Pratt.  "Here's an exception,
any way.  The first and last men will each have
five hours twenty minutes' sleep on end; the
middleman won't get any, because he won't fall
asleep at all in the first watch, from over-anxiety,
or in the third, because it won't seem worth while.
Still, if we permutate--APW, PAW and so
on--we'll all suffer in turn.  I warn you, when I'm
middleman I shan't be able to keep awake without
the solace of my banjo."

"I bar that," said Armstrong.  "It'd give me
nightmare."

"Well, I've warned you.  If the Assyrian comes
down like a wolf on the fold, somewhere about
midnight, don't blame me."

But when, about seven o'clock in the morning,
they compared notes, they found that none of
them had been disturbed, and Pratt had a good
deal to say on the advantages of the midnight
hours for the refreshment of the inner man.  Two
empty ginger-beer bottles beside his chair approved
his sentiments.

"It's only a respite, of course," he said.  "They
wouldn't have started their tricks without a
reason; they won't give them up until they find
them useless; and they'll make that discovery all
the sooner if we open a defensive offensive.  I
propose to go into the village after breakfast; an
idea's occurred to me; and I'll call at the post
office and see if any answer has come from the
fellow I sent that Russian newspaper to.  You
had better come with me, Jack; it's Phil's turn to
be house-dog."

So it was arranged.  Pratt and Armstrong rowed
the dinghy to the ferry.  Joe Rogers was standing
at his inn door.

"Morning to 'ee, young gentlemen," he said.
"You be Mr. Pratt's nephew, sir," he added to Pratt.

"How do you know that?" asked Pratt.

"Old Gaffer Drew telled me when he came home
along last night.  He said as 'twas the young feller
whose tongue went like a clapper, so I knowed 'ee
at once."

"Well, I'd rather be known by my tongue than
by my finger-prints, wouldn't you?"

"Ay, we've all got our weaknesses.  Mine is
baldness, come of a fever I took aboardship when
we was off Gallapagos.  My old woman *will* make
me wear a wig, though I could do without it this
hot weather.  And how do 'ee find No Man's
Island, sir?"

"A place of enchantment, equal to Prospero's
island.  We know there's a Puck, and we suspect
there's a Caliban, but more of that anon."

"You do talk like a book, sir.  Well, I'm glad
you be comfortable.  Good day to 'ee."

They called at the village post office.  There was
no letter from Pratt's friend.

"Let's go on and have a look at my uncle's
house," said Pratt, when they came out.  "It's
about a mile beyond the village, on that by-road
we saw the other day.  The road winds a good
deal, and though I don't propose to leave my card
at the house, I'd like to take a peep at it once more,
closer than we can get from the river."

They went on, turned into the by-road, and
after about three-quarters of a mile came to a brick
wall on the right, in which there was a massive gate,
and within it a small lodge.  The gate was
padlocked, the lodge closed and shuttered.  A few
hundred yards beyond was a second gate and lodge.
The latter also was evidently unoccupied, but the
gate was open.

"It's the shortest way from the house to
Dartmouth," said Pratt.  "We can't see the house
for the trees, but if I remember rightly the ground's
more open a little farther along."

In a minute or so they came to a spot where, by
mounting the wall, they were able to obtain a clear
view of the building.  It stood above a terraced
garden some three hundred yards from the road.
Fine though the day was, they were both struck
by a sense of gloom.  The windows were all closed;
those on the ground floor were shuttered; and
but for a thin wisp of smoke rising from one of
the chimneys the house might have been supposed
to be untenanted.

"The servants' quarters are at the back," said
Pratt.  "The foreigners at any rate don't play
high jinks in the front rooms while my uncle is
away.  But it looks pretty dreary, doesn't it, old
man?  Makes me think of Mariana in the moated
grange."

"Don't know the lady," said Armstrong.  "But
look! there's a car coming out of the garage at
the side."

"That used to be the stables," said Pratt, as
the doors were flung wide, and an open four-seated
touring car emerged.  "That's not the car we saw
the other day, though the chauffeur's the same."

Perched on the wall they remained watching.
The chauffeur stopped the car, got out, and shut
the doors of the garage.  Meanwhile the big fellow
whom Armstrong had felled came round the other
side of the house carrying a small leather trunk.
Behind him walked a short, dapper little man,
wearing a grey Homburg hat and a light
overcoat.  From his gestures it appeared that he
ordered the big man to strap the trunk on to the
luggage-carrier at the rear of the car.  When this
was done, the small man got into one of the back
seats, and the chauffeur, already at the wheel,
started the car along the right-hand fork in the
drive leading to the open gate.

"Down!  They mustn't see us," said Pratt.

They dropped from the wall into the grounds,
and shinned up a small tree whose thick-laden
branches overhung the edge of the road.  Half a
minute later the car ran past, swung to the right
outside the gate, and dashed rather noisily in the
direction of Dartmouth.

.. _`"THEY SHINNED UP A SMALL TREE"`:

.. figure:: images/img-096.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "THEY SHINNED UP A SMALL TREE."

   "THEY SHINNED UP A SMALL TREE."

.. vspace:: 2

.. _`"HALF A MINUTE LATER THE CAR RAN PAST"`:

.. figure:: images/img-097.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "HALF A MINUTE LATER THE CAR RAN PAST."

   "HALF A MINUTE LATER THE CAR RAN PAST."


"The passenger is my uncle's secretary, I
suppose," said Pratt.  "I wonder which of the many
nations of the world claims him?  He might pass
for an Englishman, but you can't tell from a fugitive
glance when a man's clean-shaven."

"I thought he looked a decent sort of chap,"
said Armstrong, as they returned to the road; "not
the kind of fellow to consort with a man like Rush."

"No.  I dare say Rush is playing some game of
his own with one of the underlings.  I'll tell you
my idea, by the way.  Leaving us alone last night
struck me as rather suspicious.  They've probably
got something in hand for to-night.  Well, it
occurred to me that if Rush comes prowling around
our tent, with more tin-tacks or who knows what,
it would be rather a good dodge to trip him up and
collar him before he can hook it."

"He'll guess we're on the watch.  No man
would be such an ass as to suppose we'd let him
do the tin-tack trick a second time."

"That may be.  Very likely he kept off last
night just for that reason.  As you say, he'd guess
we'd be on the watch, and probably thinks we're
all jolly sick to-day because nothing happened,
and won't be inclined to keep vigil again.
Anyhow, if he does come again, he won't expect any
danger until he gets near to the tent, and I propose
to nab him before then."

"How?"

"Stretch a cord two or three inches above the
ground just where the thicket ends at the edge of
the clearing.  He wouldn't see it, even by
moonlight, because it would be pretty well hidden by
the grass.  But he'd be bound to catch one of his
hoofs in it, and a lumbering lout like that couldn't
pick himself up before any one of us three would
be down on him."

"But how d'you know which way he'd come?"

"He wouldn't come across the clearing, that's
certain.  Well, the tent is about six yards from
the thicket behind, and the edge of the thicket
makes a sort of rough half-circle.  A cord of fifty
or sixty yards would be plenty long enough.  I
dare say we'll get one at old Blevins's shop.  We'll
pay him a call on the way back."

The shop was unattended when they entered it,
but a rap on the counter brought Blevins himself,
wearing the polite tradesman's smile.

"Good-morning, Mr. Blevins," said Pratt.
"You've a motor-car for hire, I believe?"

"Well, yes, sir, I do have as a rule, but 'tis out
to-day.  In fact, I don't know when it will be
back.  'Tis hired for the Red House, Mr. Pratt's
being under repair."

"Ah! that's a pity.  We'll have to put off our
joy-ride.  Well, it can't be helped.  Perhaps you
could let us have a skipping-rope instead?"

"A skipping-rope, sir?"

"Yes.  Didn't you know?  Skipping is one
of the most beneficial exercises any one could
indulge in.  It brings into play I forget exactly
how many muscles, develops a perfect co-ordination
between the brain, the eye, the hands and feet;
and if you ever go to Oxford, I dare say you'll see
on any college lawn all the brainiest men of the
rising generation skipping about under the eyes of
their revered tutors.  If the mountains could skip
like rams, as we're told they did, there's nothing
surprising in a future Prime Minister skipping like
a giddy goat, is there?  And there are hundreds of
future Prime Ministers imbibing the milk of
academic instruction at Oxford to-day."

Blevins had listened with a stare of puzzlement.
The short, chubby youth appeared to be serious;
his companion's face showed no flicker of a smile;
yet the general dealer, remembering what his
assistant had told him, had a dim suspicion that
he was dealing either with a joker or with a lunatic.
To get rid of his dilemma he confined himself to the
severely practical.

"Well, sir," he said, "I don't keep skipping-ropes
as such, but I've a cord which the neighbours
do make clothes-line of."

"The very thing!" cried Pratt.  "We haven't
made any arrangements about our washing, and,
as laundry prices have gone up beyond all bearing,
we may have to do our own.  Of course we shall
want a clothes-line for hanging out our shirts and
things on, and as my friends are regular nuts, and
possess a very extensive wardrobe, we shall want a
long line--quite fifty yards.  Add ten yards for a
skipping-rope, that makes sixty; we'll take sixty
yards, Mr. Blevins; and as you can't possibly make
a neat parcel of that, you'd better twist 'em round
the hefty frame of my friend here; sort of bandolier,
you know."

The man proceeded to measure out the cord
from a bale which he rolled from his back premises.

"You be camping on No Man's Island, 'tis said,"
he remarked.

"We are," replied Pratt.  "We're followers of
the simple life; fresh air, cold water, and plain
fare.  We drink nothing stronger than ginger-beer,
and eat nothing more luxurious than macaroons,
and I suppose we can't get even them in a place
like this?  What's the consequence?  We never
have bad dreams, like people who stuff themselves
and sleep in stuffy rooms."

"And you haven't been troubled by the sounds, sir?"

"What sounds?"

"Well--some folks do talk of terrible groans
they've heard if so be they've rowed past the
island by night, and 'tis said the place is haunted
by the spirit of the old gentleman as used to live
there."

"He hasn't disturbed our rest, I assure you.
I dare say he's been soothed by my banjo; I
usually tune up a little before I go to bed.  You
play the banjo yourself, I hear; you know how
grateful and comforting it is--sweet and low, not
like the squeaking scrape of the violin, or the
ear-splitting blast of the cornet.  I think you're a man
of taste, Mr. Blevins, and as a fellow-musician
I congratulate you....  That's sixty yards?
Now, Armstrong, stick out your chest, and Mr. Blevins
and I between us will rig up your bandolier."

When they had left the shop, Pratt asked: "I
say, what's he mean by those old groans?"

"I heard a sort of moaning the night I first saw
the cottage," Armstrong replied; "but I put it
down to the wind, of course."

"There's been no wind to speak of since we
settled on the island.  I'd like to hear those sounds.
Strikes me they're an acoustical phenomenon.  Sure
it wasn't an owl?"

"Nothing like it; the note was deeper and more
prolonged."

"Well, if it's the wind in the eaves the sound will
be heard by day as well as by night, and I'll trot
over to the cottage the first breezy morning and
listen."

Warrender had nothing to report when they
regained the camp.  He thought well of Pratt's
idea of a trap, and they spent the greater part of
the day in cutting a number of stout pegs from
saplings in the woods.  These they drove into the
ground, at intervals of a few feet, in a long
semi-circle at the edge of the clearing, and stretched
the clothes-line upon them about six inches from
the ground.  One or other of them kept a careful
look-out while the work was in progress, and nothing
was seen of Rush or any other human being.
Before dusk the task was completed, and they had
provided themselves in addition with stout cudgels.

It was Pratt's turn to take first watch that night.
On the previous night each had sat out in the open,
but it occurred to Pratt that a better place would
be just within the tent.  Accordingly, when the
others encased themselves in their sleeping-bags,
he posted himself on his chair at the entrance,
shaded from the moonlight by the projecting flap.

More than two hours had passed; he was growing
sleepy, frequently glancing at his watch to see
when it would be time to awaken Warrender.
Just before half-past eleven he heard a slight
sound from the thicket on his right.  Seizing his
cudgel, he looked in the direction of the sound.
The edge of the clearing on that side was deep in
shadow.  He stood up; it might be a false alarm;
he would not awaken his companions.

Suddenly there was a heavy thud, followed by
smothered curses.  Pratt dashed out of the tent
and across the clearing.  At the edge of the thicket
a man was struggling to his feet.  Even at that
moment Pratt was too much of a sportsman to use
his cudgel.  He closed with the man, gripped him
by the collar, and hauled him into the moonlight,
crying, "What are you doing here?"  The man
attempted to wriggle loose.  Pratt dropped his
cudgel, got a firm grip with both hands, and with
a dexterous use of his knee threw the intruder
heavily to the ground.  Next moment he was
struck violently on the left side of his head, and
fell half-stunned.

.. _`"PRATT THREW THE INTRUDER HEAVILY TO THE GROUND"`:

.. figure:: images/img-103.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "PRATT THREW THE INTRUDER HEAVILY TO THE GROUND."

   "PRATT THREW THE INTRUDER HEAVILY TO THE GROUND."

Meanwhile the sounds had wakened Armstrong
and Warrender.  Heaving themselves out of their
sleeping-bags they rushed in their pyjamas across
the clearing.  Pratt was sitting up, dazedly rubbing
his head.

"What's the row?" asked Armstrong.

"Diamond cut diamond," murmured Pratt.
"Help me up, you fellows.  Everything's whirling
round."

They helped him back into the tent and sponged
his head.  Presently he was able to tell them what
had happened.

"Was it Rush you collared?" asked Warrender.

"No, a bigger man, with a broad face, high
cheekbones, and a bent-in nose."

"The face I saw in the thicket!" exclaimed
Armstrong.  "Who was the other chap?"

"I don't know.  I didn't see him, confound the
fellow!  Just my luck!  And it was my scheme!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A SOFT ANSWER`:

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   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium

   A SOFT ANSWER

.. vspace:: 2

There was no more sleep that night for any
of the party.  When Pratt's bruised head had
been bathed and bandaged the three placed their
chairs at the tent entrance, and sat in the still,
warm air, discussing the situation more seriously
than they had yet done.  They had learnt definitely
from the recent incident that at least two men were
concerned in the campaign of petty annoyance.
One of these--the man whose face Armstrong had
seen in the thicket--looked like a foreigner, and
apparently either lived somewhere on the island
or had means of reaching it from the mainland.
What more probable than that the second man
was Rush, and that his boat was placed at the
foreigner's disposal?

"The more I think of it," said Warrender, "the
more likely it seems that Rush and one of the
foreigners are playing some private game of their
own.  I haven't a notion what the game is, but I
can't believe that Pratt's uncle left instructions
to worry trespassers on an island that isn't his,
or that any decent fellow in his secretary's position
would encourage it."

"That assumes the secretary is a decent fellow,"
remarked Armstrong.

"Well, why not?" asked Pratt.  "A man may
be mad without being a fool, and my old uncle,
though he's mad enough to hate English servants,
wouldn't be such a fool as to engage foreigners
without inquiring about their characters."

"That fellow Armstrong knocked down wasn't
an attractive specimen," said Warrender.

"He was drunk," said Pratt.  "Some of the
most estimable characters--the most respectable
of English butlers, for instance--may now and
then take a drop too much."

"That fellow is a sot," said Armstrong.  "It's
marked all over him."

"Well, I tell you what I think we had better
do," said Warrender.  "Go up to the house, see
the secretary, and put the case to him.  If he's
a decent fellow, and the man you tripped, Pratt,
is one of his crew, he'll put a stop to this foolery.
Will you go up with me to-morrow?"

"Better take Armstrong," Pratt replied.  "If
my uncle were at home I'd go and beard him,
and jolly well tell him a few things for his good.
But I'd rather not show up in his absence.  Besides,
I shall have a head to-morrow, and a swelling
the size of a turnip.  I feel the growing pains;
I'll be fit for nothing."

"Rough luck!" said Warrender, commiseratingly.
"Very well.  Jack and I will go, and I
dare say that'll be the end of our troubles."

At nine o'clock next morning Armstrong and
Warrender rowed off in the dinghy; at a quarter
to ten they entered the grounds of the Red House.
The paths were weedy, the grass untrimmed, the
flower-beds untidy.

"The foreigners don't overwork," remarked
Armstrong, as they walked along the drive towards
the house.  "The place is a disgrace to the
neighbourhood."

"It certainly looks very much neglected,"
said Warrender.  "The house might be
uninhabited but for that smoke from one of the
chimneys, and the car waiting at the door."

"The same car Pratt and I saw yesterday.
It belongs to old Blevins.  I wonder whether
they use it for joy-riding, or what?  The secretary
may be away, by the bye; yesterday he went off
with a trunk."

"A nuisance if he is.  But we'll see."

The front of the house faced south-east, and
the drive wound from the gate in a wide arc to
the left.  The lower windows were shuttered;
at some of those on the upper storey the blinds
were drawn; but as the visitors approached there
appeared at a small upper casement on the side
of the house facing them the form of a woman,
At first it seemed that she had not seen them; she
stood looking out in an attitude of idle immobility.
They could not distinguish her features through the
small square panes of the casement; she was stout in
build, and dressed in the print of a domestic servant.

Suddenly, as her eyes fell on them, she gave a
perceptible start.  She turned her head quickly
from the window, as if to see whether any one was
behind her; then raised her hands, apparently to
undo the catch.  Next moment she dropped them
with a gesture of impatience or despair.  The
boys saw her shake her head, and, lifting an arm,
make a sweeping movement with it towards the
rear of the house.  A moment later she left the
window hurriedly, as a servant might do in
answering a call.

"Rummy!" said Warrender.  "That's Rogers's
sister, I suppose; wife of the chef, you remember.
What did she mean?"

"It looked as if she wanted to open the window
and couldn't," returned Armstrong.  "She wanted
to speak to us."

"That movement of her arm--was it a warning
to us to go away?"

"Too late in any case.  That's the secretary
coming out; he's seen us."

The dapper little man whom Armstrong had
seen on the day before, dressed as he was then,
was hurrying down the steps from the front
entrance when he caught sight of the boys.  He
stopped short, gave a swift glance behind him,
then descended the remaining steps and came
towards them.  His movements were quick, his step
was light, and as he drew nearer they were aware
of a very vivid personality, accentuated by dark
eyes of great brilliance, set rather closely together.

"Yes, gentlemen," he said, smiling, "what can
I do for you?"

His voice was low and smooth; the intonation,
rather than the accent, alone suggested a foreign
origin.

"Can you give us a few minutes alone?" said
Warrender.

The chauffeur had just come down the steps, carrying
a box, and stood with it still in his arms, beside
the car, looking on with an air of startled curiosity.

"Certainly," replied the man, "if it is only
a question of minutes.  As you see, I am about
to drive out, and my time is short.  Henrico"--he
addressed the chauffeur--"put the box down
and go into the house.  Now, gentlemen."

"You are Mr. Pratt's secretary, I believe,"
said Warrender, feeling a little awkwardness in
the situation, and wishing that the voluble banjoist
were in the office of spokesman instead of himself.

"Yes.  My name is Gradoff--Paul Gradoff."

"Well, Mr. Gradoff, I'm sorry to trouble you,
but you may be able to throw some light on a
puzzle that's rather annoying to us."

"Anything I can do----"

"We are camping on the island over there,
and ever since our arrival have been the object
of annoying and--I'm afraid I must say--malicious
attacks.  We have reason to believe that one
of the aggressors is not an Englishman, and knowing
that your staff here is largely foreign, we have
come up to--to----"

"Complain?" suggested Gradoff, as Warrender
hesitated.

"Well, rather to ask if you can help us,"
Warrender went on.  "I should explain that we fell
foul of one of your men on the evening of our
arrival, and it occurs to me that he, or one of his
mates, may be retaliating."

"Ah yes; I had heard of that little matter
from my man, Jensen," said Gradoff, suavely.
"You could hardly expect him to be amiable,
could you?  He was insulted by a yokel, very
properly chastised him, and was then suddenly
set upon by one of you young men, and before he
could defend himself was seriously hurt."

"That's nonsense, Mr. Gradoff!" exclaimed
Armstrong.  "The man dealt a foul blow, and I
stepped in."

"It was you?" rejoined Gradoff, in his suave,
smooth tones.  "The version is different: *tot
homines tot sententiæ*--being students you will
recognise the allusion.  It is so very difficult to
reconcile conflicting stories, especially in common
brawls.  But, come; it is not like Englishmen to
make a fuss about trifles, and Olof Jensen is not
the man to bear malice.  If that is the sum of your
complaint----"

"But it is not," Warrender broke in, nettled
by the Russian's suavity and his Latin.  "We
hadn't been twelve hours on the island when
our motor-boat was set adrift----"

"My dear young man, *quandoque dormitat
Homerus*--you will correct me if I do not quote
accurately; my schooldays, alas! are a distant
past.  Even the most experienced sailors--and
I am far from saying I do not include you among
them--may tie a careless knot; make a slip, as
you English say.  And the current is strong when
swollen by the rain.  Really, my dear sir----"

"At any rate tin-tacks don't rain from heaven.
We had a shower of them over our tent one night,
and in the morning----"

"*Latet anguis in herbâ*!  Come, come; you
were dreaming.  I am told that in the past the
island was a favourite resort of trippers, a class
of people who reprehensibly leave behind them
much rubbish--paper bags, bottles, tin cans; why
not tin-tacks?"

Warrender was fuming, irritated by his lack of
evidence as well as by the secretary's manner.
He wished that he had ignored the minor incidents,
and confined his statement to the latest.

"We'd no proof--I know that--till last night,"
he said.  "A fellow tripped over a rope snare
we had rigged up.  One of us caught him, and
knocked him out; he was clearly a foreigner----"

"And you have him in custody?  Ah, now we
are getting to something substantial!  He was
a foreigner; on the principle *ex pede Herculem*--you
recognise the proverb?--you infer that he
belongs to my staff.  And you did not bring him
with you for confrontation?"

"He was rescued by----"

"By another foreigner?"

"We don't know who by; he gave my friend
a blow from behind."

"That is more serious, truly.  But what do
you tell me?  You are camping on the island--with
permission?  No, of course not; is it not No
Man's Island?  Well, what is no man's is all men's.
What more likely than that others are camping
there also?  One of them falls over your rope,
and is knocked out by your friend; your friend is,
in turn, knocked out by a friend of the tripper.
It is the *lex talionis*--the term is familiar to you?
That, of course, is only a theory, but I commend it
to your consideration.  And now, I take it, I have
the sum of your complaints.  I put it to you, do
they make a case against my staff?"

"I wasn't making a case against your staff,"
said Warrender.  "I merely stated the facts."

"But with a bias; yes, with a bias, natural
enough to youth and hot blood.  I do not blame
you; but you will agree that I am somewhat
concerned for the good name of the men under my
charge.  Lest you should still harbour doubts
about them, I will summon them.  You shall see
them.  They number four.  There is Jensen, the
Swede, whom you, sir"--turning to Armstrong--"so
unhappily misjudged.  But you shall see them
all.  There is a woman, too, the wife of the chef,
an amiable countrywoman of yours.  It is perhaps
not necessary to summon her?  You do not suspect
her of sowing tin-tacks or falling over your rope?"

He smiled, and without waiting for an answer
went to the open house-door and called his chauffeur,
to whom he gave instructions.  Meanwhile, the two
boys, chafing under his politeness with its touch of
irony, exchanged looks of silent sympathy.

"The men will be here immediately," said
Gradoff, rejoining them.  "What a delightful
summer we are having!  *Per æstivam liquidam*--you
remember the line?  How I envy you your
daily browsing on the Classics!  Ah, here come
the four suspects!  Two, you perceive, are tall;
two are short.  I will align them in order of their
heights, as they do in your army, I believe.  Halt,
men!  Stand in line: Jensen at one end, then
Radewski, then Prutti, last of all, Rod.  Now,
my dear sirs, inspect the company."

"There's no need," said Warrender.  "We've
seen them all in or about the village.  None of
these is the man you saw, Jack?"

"No," replied Armstrong, shortly.

"But darkness, even moonlight, is deceptive,"
said Gradoff, in his suavest manner.  "Really, I
am concerned to convince you thoroughly; I
should regret your going away harbouring the least
particle of suspicion.  I will interrogate them in
turn.  Jensen, you do not amuse yourself by
sowing tin-tacks on No Man's Island?--Jensen,
I may explain, is Mr. Pratt's horsekeeper, in
particular, and handy-man in general.  Well, Jensen?"

"Nope," replied the man, gruffly, eyeing Armstrong
with a scowl.

"And you, Radewski?--Radewski is the gardener."  The
boys recognised him as the passenger
in the car that had collided with the farm-wagon.

"No, of course not," answered the Pole, smiling.

"And now you, Prutti?--the chauffeur, as you see."

"It is silly, stupid; I say ze question----"
began the Italian, volubly.

"Yes, yes; but I want no comments.  Just say
yes or no," Gradoff interrupted.

"No, zen; I say no.  I say ze question----"

"He comes from the south, gentlemen," said
Gradoff, deprecatingly.  "Now, Rod, what have
you to say?"

"Sacré nom d'un----"

"Now, now.  Maximilien Rod is the chef,
gentlemen, accustomed to the use of the diction
of the menu.  Plain English, Rod, if you please."

"Zen I say zat ze man vat accuse me of so
imbecile, so--so--so----"

"Contain yourself, Rod.  Yes or no?"

"No, no; not at all--no!"

"Four negatives do not make an affirmative,"
said Gradoff, turning to the boys, and smiling
with the persistent urbanity they were beginning
to detest.  "These are all my staff--with the
exception of the excellent woman, Rod's wife.
Would you like to pursue your inquiries?"

"Thank you, it is unnecessary," replied
Warrender, in as even and polite a tone as he was
master of.

"Then the men may return to their duties,
and I may begin my journey.  May I give you
a lift as far as the cross-roads?  Or, stay!  You
are here very near the river.  You may prefer to
take a short cut through the grounds, and avoid
the long walk on the dusty road."

"Thank you," said Warrender, ready to accept
any suggestion that would remove him quickly
from the presence of Mr. Gradoff; "if some one
will show us the way."

"Certainly.  Quite a happy thought," said the
Russian.  He called to the chef, the rearmost of
the party filing away.  "Rod, show these
gentlemen the shortest way to the river; bring them
opposite to the island.  Good-morning, gentlemen.
I am sorry you have found me a broken reed.  But
I do hope your holiday will not be spoilt; I have
such keen memories of my own happy
holidays--*liberatio et vacuitas omnis molestiæ*: you
remember your Cicero?  *Good*-morning."

He sprang into the car, in which the chauffeur
was already seated, and with a smile and a wave
of the hand was driven away.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`INFORMATION RECEIVED`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XI


.. class:: center medium

   INFORMATION RECEIVED

.. vspace:: 2

"Sarcastic swine!" muttered Armstrong,
savagely, as he set off with Warrender behind
the rotund little chef.

"So confoundedly polite I could have kicked
him," returned Warrender, in the same undertone.
"His beastly Latin, too!  What did he take us for?"

"What we are--a couple of mugs.  And Pratt's
worse, with his absurd theories.  Of course these
chaps aren't in it.  Rush is at the bottom of it,
and the other fellow, though he looked like a
foreigner, is very likely only some ugly freak of a
Devonian after all."

"Well, I'll be hanged if I stand any more of
Rush's nonsense.  Next time anything happens,
I'll get old Crawshay to set that bobby moving we
saw the other day.  I'm sick of it."

Ill-humour had for the moment got the upper
hand, and they were conscious only of their soreness
as they followed their guide through the unkempt
grounds.  Their attention was attracted presently
by the tower that reared itself out of a thicket
some little distance on their left.  It was a square
much-dilapidated building of stone, encrusted with
moss and ivy, reaching a height of some fifty or
sixty feet.  The window openings were boarded
up with deal planks that were evidently new.

"Is the tower used for anything now?"
Warrender asked the Swiss.

"Ze tower?  No, it is ruin, fall to pieces,"
replied the man.

.. _`"'ZE TOWER?  NO, IT IS RUIN, FALL TO PIECES'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-117.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "'ZE TOWER?  NO, IT IS RUIN, FALL TO PIECES.'"

   "'ZE TOWER?  NO, IT IS RUIN, FALL TO PIECES.'"

"I say, we *are* a couple of lunatics!" cried
Armstrong.  "We've left the dinghy at the ferry.
What's the good of the short cut?  Pratt can't
work the motor."

"Hang it!  I'd clean forgotten."

"Zen ve go back?" said the guide, eagerly.
He had come to the end of the open grounds; the
rest of the way lay through a wilderness of shrubs
that promised laborious walking.

"No, I'm hanged if we do," said Warrender.
"Now we've come so far we'll not go back."

"Zen how you cross ze river?"

"Swim it.  You needn't come.  We'll forge
straight ahead.  Thanks."

He tipped the man, and plunged with Armstrong
into the thicket.  Ten minutes' battling with the
intricately woven mass of greenery brought them
to the brink of the stream almost exactly opposite
to their camping-place.  They stripped, bundled
their clothes upon their heads, and made short
work of the thirty-foot channel.

"My aunt!  In native garb!" cried Pratt,
as they walked up still unclothed.  "'Here be
we poor mariners.'  Shipwrecked?  Lost the
dinghy?"

"No, only our tempers," replied Armstrong.
"The dinghy's still at the ferry."

"I say, my uncle hasn't got back, has he?"
asked Pratt.

"No.  Why?"

"I thought perhaps you had met him, and got
a taste of *his* temper, that's all.  'Tell me not in
mournful numbers'--but tell me anyhow you like
the cause of this Ulyssean exhibition."

Warrender began the narrative as he towelled
himself, continued it through his dressing, and
concluded it when he had dropped into his chair
by Pratt's side.  Pratt listened with ever-growing
merriment.

"You priceless old fatheads!" he exclaimed.
"When the beggar chucked Latin at you why
didn't you pelt him with Greek, Phil?--or with
sines and hypotenuses, and all that, Jack?  Don't
you remember how some Cambridge josser floored
a heathen bargee by calling him an isosceles
triangle?  I wish I'd gone."

"I wish you had!" echoed Warrender.  "But
when a fellow's so dashed polite----"

"Polite!  I tell you what it is: you're both
too serious for this flighty world.  When you
consider that it's gyrating at the rate of I don't
know how many thousand miles a minute, it's
unnatural, positively indecent, for any one to be
so stuggy.  The art of life is to effervesce.  But,
you know, the important feature of your morning's
entertainment seems not to have sufficiently
impressed you."

"What's that?" asked Armstrong.

"Rod's wife.  *Cherchez la femme*!  You oughtn't
to have come away without having had a word
with her."

"How on earth could we?" said Warrender.
"We weren't asked into the house, and if we
had been----"

"My dear chap, if a fair lady beckoned to me
out of her casement window I'd find some means
of receiving her behests.  Rod's wife, *née* Molly
Rogers, didn't make signs to you for nothing, and
I foresee that I shall have to turn our skipping-rope
into a rope ladder, and----"

"Oh, don't go on gassing," Armstrong
interposed, irascibly.  "Can't you be serious?"

"Solemnity itself.  We've got to fetch that
dinghy.  I want to go to the post office.  Very
well, after lunch Phil shall run me up in the
motorboat.  I'll have a word with Rogers on the way,
and I bet my boots I won't come back without some
little addition to our dossier."

Pratt's programme was carried out.  Warrender
and he found Joe Rogers pulling spring onions in
his garden behind the inn.  The man had placed
his wig on a pea-stick, and his bald pate glowed
in the sunlight like a pink turnip.

"Good-afternoon, Joe," said Pratt, genially.
"I wonder how it is that you sailormen so
often take to gardening when your sea days are over?"

"I can't tell 'ee, sir, 'cept it be as we loves the
look o' vegetables, being without 'em so long at a
time.  The old woman do say it keeps me out o'
mischief."

"Now, Rogers," called his better half from an
upper window, "put on your hair this minute.
Drat the man!  Do 'ee want to catch your death
of sunstroke?"

Rogers gave a sly look at his visitors as he donned
his wig.

"It do make my skull itch terrible," he said.
"But she's a good woman."

"I jolly well hope I shall be looked after as well
when my time comes," said Pratt.  "But I'm not
thinking of matrimony yet.  What age did you
marry at, Joe?"

"Thirty-one, just the same age as my sister
Molly, but not in such a hurry.  My missus took
a deal o' courting; 'twas five years' hard labour;
whereas Molly give in in less than a month."

"He came, he saw--he conquered.  Must be
something fascinating about him.  Has she lost
her cold, by the way?  My friends happened to
see her this morning."

"Well now, if that ain't too bad.  She haven't
been nigh me for a good fortnight, and she didn't
ought to go about the village without looking in."

"They saw her at the house.  She seemed to
be catching flies or something at the window.  I
gather you don't like her husband."

"I've nothing against him, 'cept his name and
furren nature.  My missus told her she was cutting
a rod for her own back."

"Surely he doesn't beat her?"

"That wasn't her meaning.  Rod's his name,
and the missus do have a way of taking up a
word and twisting of it about, you may say.
'A rod in pickle,' says she.  'Tis just a clappering
tongue; there's no sense in it.  But it do seem as
Molly have turned her back on all her old friends.
'Tis like this: they furriners bain't favourites in
the parish, and Molly sticks to her husband, as
'tis her duty.  That's what I make of it."

"Well, I dare say she chose the pick of the
bunch.  How many are there of them, by the bye?"

"Four, leaving out the secretary.  They don't
go about in the village much.  None of 'em comes
here 'cept that feller you saw t'other day, and he
don't come often.  *I* don't get no good of 'em.
'Twas different in the old days."

"Things will take a turn," said Pratt,
consolingly.  "When my--when Mr. Pratt returns
I dare say he'll quarrel with the foreigners, and
get English servants again."

"And be ye all right on the island, sir?"

"Having a ripping time.  We're always on
the look-out for the ghost, but he seems rather
shy.  I can sympathise with him, being so bashful
myself."

"You do seem to have a bit of a bump one
side of the head, sir.  No inseck have been poisoning
'ee, I hope."

"No.  Insects love me too well to disfigure
me.  I'm inclined to think it was a worm, or
something like a leech, perhaps.  It's a trifle; a
molehill, not a mountain.  To-morrow both sides will
be equal, and the angles subtended at the base as
right as ever.  Good-bye; keep your hair on."

"Well, old man, we've spent a profitable quarter
of an hour," said Pratt, as he went on with
Warrender to the village.  "The number of Gradoff s
staff is confirmed; therefore the chap I collared
is not one of them.  As to Rod's wife, there's no
mystery about her.  She's disgusted, as any
sensible person would be, at the petty
narrow-mindedness of the natives who dislike her husband
simply because he's of another breed, and so she
cuts 'em dead."

"But what did her movements at the window
mean?" asked Warrender.  "It certainly looked
as if she wanted help or something."

"Nothing of the sort, depend upon it.  She was
waving you off; she's as careful of Rod as Rogers's
missus is of him; she was afraid Armstrong would
go for Rod as he went for the Swede.  I'm always
ready to own up when I'm wrong.  My old theories
won't hold water.  I think I'll give up detecting
and go in for the Bar.  You only have to stick
to your brief; needn't have an idea of your own."

"Well, it seems to me we're not much for'arder."

"Quite a mistake.  The issue is narrowed down.
Clear our minds of the foreign menagerie and all
that, and concentrate on Rush.  That's the ticket."

Calling at the post office, he was handed a letter
from his London friend, who reported that the
scrap of paper was torn from a copy of the *Pravda*.
Only part of the date of issue was visible--the word
June; and the incomplete paragraph of text
appeared to relate to the high prices of perambulators.

"There you are," said Pratt.  "Much cry and
little wool.  It proves nothing except that some
one, some time or other, had a Russian
newspaper, which was partly burnt along with other
papers, no doubt equally uninteresting and
unimportant.  What we have to do is simply to
weave a spider's web for Rush."

"You change your mind twice a day, and are
cock-sure every time," Warrender remarked.

"A clear proof that I ought to go in for politics,
after all.  I'm glad it's settled at last.  Percy
Pratt, M.P.--reverse 'em, you get P.M., Prime
Minister; then Sir Percy, Bart.; Baron Pratt,
Viscount, Earl--why not Duke while I'm about
it?  But do dukes play the banjo, I wonder?"

"You're better qualified for the part of Mad
Hatter, I fancy.  Come, let's step it out."

The evening of that day turned out rather cool
and overcast.  A breeze sprang up in the south-west,
refreshing after the still heat.  After early
supper, Armstrong, declaring that he was getting
flabby for want of exercise, set off in the dinghy
for a pull down the river.  Pratt thought it a good
opportunity for testing Armstrong's report of the
sounds he had heard in the cottage, and went off
alone, leaving Warrender on guard at the camp.

He had not yet come within sight of the ruins
when, above the rustle of the stirred leaves, a
strange moaning broke upon his ear.  He stopped
to listen.  While far more impressionable than
Armstrong, he had solid musical knowledge which
his schoolfellow lacked, and he was struck at once
by an unusual quality in the sound he heard.

"That's not the wind in the eaves," he thought.
"It's more like the whining of an organ pipe when
a lazy blower is letting the wind out."

He hurried on.  The sound rose and fell.  For
some moments it maintained a steady, pure organ
note; then with rising pitch it became almost a
shriek.

"I don't wonder the rustics are a bit scared,"
he thought, "but no ghost could produce a tone
like that--unless he'd been a cathedral alto in
his lifetime.  It's due, I expect, to some metal
chimney-pot that's got displaced and partly closed.
Wonder if I can find it?"

He entered the ruins, and ran up the staircase.
A roseate twilight suffused the western sky.  Led
by the persistent sound, he came to the unroofed
room facing the west.  The moaning proceeded from
some spot above his head.  He tried to clamber
up the mass of broken masonry that littered the
floor, but found that he could not gain the level
of the roof except by climbing the jagged brickwork
of the broken wall, a feat too perilous in the half
light.

"That's the worst of being fat," he said to
himself.  "I believe Armstrong could do it."

Leaving the room presently, he went idly,
without definite motive, into the second room,
facing east and overlooking the river and his
uncle's grounds.  In this direction dusk was
already deepening into night; the nearer trees
were still distinguishable, but beyond the river all
individual objects were blurred by the darkness.

He sat on the paneless window-sill, listening
to the strange sound from above, looking out
towards the Red House, wondering whereabouts
in the wide world his uncle was travelling.  All
at once, far away, almost on a level with his
eyes, he thought he saw a faint red glow.  It
disappeared in a moment--so quickly that it
seemed an illusion.  But there it was again,
indubitably some small luminous body.  "Some
one with a lamp in one of the top rooms of the
Red House," he thought.  Again it disappeared,
only to show again after an interval--a third
time--a fourth.

To Pratt these phenomena were at first merely
sensations of sight, not perceptions of intelligence.
But by and by he was struck by the fact that the
glow always appeared at the same spot, not here
and there, like a lamp carried by a person moving
about a room.  Then he found himself mentally
measuring the intervals between its appearances,
expecting their occurrence as regularly as the
beats of a striking clock.  It was with surprise
and a sort of disappointment that he discovered
that the intervals were irregular, and with curiosity,
after a while, that they were regular and irregular
both, as it seemed, fitfully; the glow appeared
two or three times at equal intervals, then the
intervals became shorter or longer.  "Signals,
of course," he thought, when the impression of
order and purpose became fixed in him.  "Who
is it?  Where is it?  What's the game?"

The alternations continued for several minutes,
then finally ceased.  Pratt got up, left the ruins,
and made his way with some difficulty back to camp.

"Armstrong back?" he asked.

"Not yet," replied Warrender.  "Time he
was.  This is the darkest evening we've had.
See any one?"

"Not a soul.  All quiet here?"

"Absolute peace.  *You* weren't here."

"Thanks.  Glad you missed me.  Will the
sweet, melodious strains of my gentle banjo disturb
your serenity?"

"Not a bit.  Strum away.  But hadn't you
better turn in?  It's past nine.  Old Jack won't
get much sleep before second watch if he isn't
here soon; no reason why you shouldn't have your
full whack, especially after last night's affair."

"I'll stay up till he comes."

Pratt softly thrummed his strings, musing on
his discoveries.  Half-past nine came; ten o'clock.

"I say, what's happened to Armstrong?" said
Warrender.  "Surely he hasn't been carried out
to sea?  Come and help me shove off; I'll run
down and see if I can find him.  You won't turn
in, so you won't mind taking part of my watch."

"Righto!  But I dare say Jack's enjoying himself."

They were just about to launch the motor-boat
when they caught the dull sound of oars in
the distance.  They waited.  The rising moon
struggled through the rack, and cast a faint light
on the stream.  Presently the dinghy appeared
from among the overarching foliage.  Armstrong
was sculling very quietly.

"Thought you were lost," said Warrender.
"It's past ten; your watch starts at eleven-forty."

"All right.  Pratt, tie up, will you?  Come
with me, Warrender."

Armstrong led the way at a long, rapid stride
across the clearing and into the thicket.  He said
nothing, and did not pause until he came to the
shore of the western channel.

"Keep well behind this tree," he said, in a
whisper, placing himself in shadow.

In a few minutes they heard the splash of oars.
A boat emerged from the shades down stream, lit
up fitfully by the transient moonbeams.  It
passed close beneath their hiding-place.  It held
a single oarsman, whose thickset frame would
have been unmistakable even if the moonlight had
not touched his face.  He pulled out of sight.

"What's he been up to?" said Warrender.

"Let's get back," replied Armstrong.  "I
wanted a second witness.  Pratt will wish to start
a new career now, I expect."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`QUEER FISH`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XII


.. class:: center medium

   QUEER FISH

.. vspace:: 2

When Armstrong had started in the dinghy
for a pull down the river his intention was to
scull easily on the current to the mouth, then to
turn westward, and exercise his muscles more
strenuously in a contest with the wind.  On
reaching the coastline, however, he found that there
was much more force in the breeze than had appeared
inland, and a considerable swell on the sea, and
he contented himself with hugging the shore,
protected in some measure by the cliffs that
swept round to a promontory in the distance.

After a stiff pull for half an hour or so he turned.
The last faint radiance of sunset was behind him,
and as he approached the river mouth, being himself
shadowed by the cliffs, he noticed signs of activity
about the fisher's hut on the beach beyond the
farther bank.  Two men were carrying what
appeared to be fishing gear down to a boat at
the water's edge.  The weather seemed scarcely
to promise good fishing, and, knowing from his
friends that the hut was in the occupation, if not
the possession, of Rush, he was sufficiently
interested to decide upon watching the men's proceedings.
He pulled a little more closely inshore, shipped
his oars, and lay to under cover of a mass of rock.

In a few minutes the men got aboard the boat,
and pulled out to sea in the direction of a small
tramp steamer which was just visible on the eastern
horizon, and, as the trail of smoke from its funnel
showed, was coming down channel.  It seemed to
Armstrong a good opportunity for examining the
hut; possibly he might find there some clue to
Rush's mysterious activities.  Assured that under
the shadow of the cliffs he would be invisible to
the boatmen, he pulled across to the opposite
beach, and ran the dinghy ashore in a small, sheltered
cove two or three hundred yards from the hut.
Leaving the boat high and dry, he made his way
back along the beach at the foot of the cliffs, and
approached the hut, which stood on a rocky
platform above high-water mark.  As he neared it
he was careful to keep it between himself and the
boat at sea; Rush, if he were one of the two,
was probably long-sighted.

By the time he reached the hut the boat was
nearly a mile out, and the men appeared to be
letting down a net.  He slipped in through the
open door, and threw a glance round the interior,
seizing the last moments of twilight for his rapid
scrutiny.  He saw, as might have been expected,
the usual fisherman's gear: old nets, lobster pots,
cork floats, a broken oar, part of a rudder, an old
sou'wester, baskets, ropes--nothing that had any
particular interest or significance.  But, just as
he was about to leave, he noticed in the darkest
corner half a dozen tins strung by the handles
upon a length of trailing rope.  Their shape
suggested paraffin or petrol rather than any material
useful to fishers; yet they were not the common
petrol cans; they were larger and wider-necked
than those that held the ordinary motor-spirit.
He lifted one; it was empty, but very firmly
corked, as likewise were the others.

Armstrong took one of the cans, stretching
the rope, towards the door, to examine it more
closely in what was left of the twilight.  On
the shoulder, enclosed in a panel, was an
embossed description, the characters reminding
Armstrong of the printed letters of the Russian
newspaper.

"Rummy," he thought.  "Gradoff, judging
by his name, is a Russian, and the only Russian
hereabouts.  Yet we find a Russian newspaper
in the cellar, and Russian petrol tins in Rush's
hut.  Queer!"

He replaced the cans, and left the hut.  As
he did so he saw, out at sea, the steamer he had
noticed as a distant smudge some twenty minutes
before.  No smoke was now pouring from her
funnel; apparently she had stopped or slowed
down some distance beyond the small boat.  While
he was watching, the vessel went ahead.  The small
boat rowed farther out; then appeared to beat
about for a time; finally stopped, and from the
movements of the figures Armstrong saw aboard,
they were lifting something from the water.  The
steamer, meanwhile, was proceeding steadily on
her course down channel.

The growing dusk had rendered it impossible
for the watcher to discern anything clearly;
steamer, boat, and men were merely indistinct
shapes.  But the boat, without doubt, was the
one that he had seen leave the beach; its
movements were strange, and Armstrong decided to
await its return.  Who were its occupants?  What
was their errand?  What were they bringing back
with them?

The enlarging boat was evidently coming ashore.
Armstrong looked rapidly around, and spied,
close to the hut, and, between that and his own
boat, a ridge of rock that would give him cover.
Posting himself there, he waited.  The dusk
deepened.  Presently he heard the faint, slow,
regular thuds of oars in the rowlocks, then low
voices.  He could now discern the boat as a
dark patch on the white crests of the rollers.  It
came steadily in, grounded; the two men sprang
into the surf.  The tide was going out.  They did
not haul the boat up, but lifted from it the bundles
of gear and carried them into the hut.  But there
was no fish.  They passed Armstrong's hiding-place
near enough for him to recognise them.  The
first of them was Rush; the second--even in the
dusk Armstrong knew again that broad, flat face.
It was the face he had seen in the thicket--the
face of the mysterious assailant Pratt had described.

.. _`"THEY LIFTED THE BUNDLES OF GEAR, AND CARRIED THEM INTO THE HUT"`:

.. figure:: images/img-133.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "THEY LIFTED THE BUNDLES OF GEAR AND CARRIED THEM INTO THE HUT."

   "THEY LIFTED THE BUNDLES OF GEAR AND CARRIED THEM INTO THE HUT."

After disposing of their gear in the hut, they
returned to the boat.  The stranger, a big man,
came up again alone, bent under a bulky package,
to which a string of petrol tins was attached.
"Smugglers, by jiminy!" thought Armstrong.
The package appeared to be encased in tarpaulin.
The man halted at the door of the hut, let down his
load, detached the cans, and waited.  In a few
seconds Rush joined him, helped him to hoist the
package to his back, and bade him a gruff
"Good-night."  The man marched heavily up the beach
to the east, towards a narrow rift in the cliff.
Rush took the cans into the hut, shut and locked
the door, and, with his hands in his pockets,
moved slowly down towards his boat.  Fearing
that as he rowed back he might discover the
dinghy in the cove, Armstrong hurried quietly
away, shoved off, and had turned into the river
when he heard the splash of Rush's oars.  Pulling
quickly but steadily, he was out of sight by the
time Rush reached the mouth, and when he
arrived at the camping-place guessed that he and
Warrender could cross to the western shore of the
island before Rush rowed past.

.. vspace:: 2

Such was the story Armstrong quietly told
his companions as they sat on their chairs before
the tent.

"Smugglers!" ejaculated Pratt, lowering his
voice as if instinctively.  "I thought the smuggling
days were over long ago.  D'you think Rush
does a roaring trade in Dutch tobacco, and finds
the foreign gang at the house good customers?
Tobacco weighs light for its bulk.  How big was
the bundle, Jack?"

"Two or three feet square, I think," replied
Armstrong.  "But tobacco is light, as you say.
I fancy this was something else, for Rush had to
help the other fellow lift it."

"And he took it eastward up the cliff?"

"Yes, in the direction that would lead to your
uncle's house, unless I'm out in my bearings."

"Well, I'm hanged!  Won't my old uncle
rave when he hears what his pet foreign domestics
are up to in his absence!  He's a terrible stickler
for law and order, not the kind of man to wink at
smuggling, as the county folk used to do in days of
yore.  That explains the light I saw."

"What light?" asked the others.

"I wended my way to the ruins to hear the
spooks groan.  They groan jolly well--a mellow
note, mostly on B flat, I fancy, though it
sometimes shrieks up a chromatic scale to what you
may call vanishing point.  Of course, it's caused
by the wind, but what surprises me is how the
wind can fetch such a musical tone out of a
chimney-pot.  It must be a tube of some sort, and what
else could it be but a chimney-pot?  I tried to
find it, but that required an acrobatic feat too
difficult for a man of my avoirdupois."

"But the light?" asked Warrender.

"Oh yes, I was forgetting!  I was looking
over towards my uncle's place when I saw a reddish
sort of glow, just about the level of the tree-tops.
It came and went, and presently it dawned upon
my usually alert intelligence that it stood a good
deal upon the order of its comings and goings; in
fact, that it was a signal.  It must have been just
about the time that tramp steamer came in sight."

"But why on earth should anybody at the
house, even if they are customers of Rush's,
signal to the smuggling steamer?" asked
Armstrong.  "There aren't any revenue officers about
here, and if there were any about the coast the
people at the house wouldn't know anything about them."

"My dear chap, there are wheels within wheels,"
said Pratt, oracularly.  "You have two
contemporaneous phenomena--jolly good phrase, that!--the
signal light, and the accosting of a tramp
steamer by a poacher and a burglar.  That's
circumstantial evidence good enough for me."

"Well, drop theories, and come to practice,"
said Warrender.  "Whatever the game is, we're
going to find it out.  It's time for us to take the
offensive.  These fellows have stalked us; it's
now for us to stalk them.  I vote we leave the
island, and accept old Crawshay's offer.  The enemy
will chortle at having succeeded in driving us away,
and will very likely be off his guard.  Then we'll
chip in."

"Just so; we'll *reculer pour mieux sauter*--you
recognise the phrase, as your Gradoff would
say?  Your suggestion smiles to me, Phil.  We
carry it unanimously, and we'll strike camp the
morn's morn.  I say, listen!"

The wind had increased in force, and there
came from the direction of the ruins the musical
moan which Warrender, alone of the three, had
not yet heard.

"'The horns of Elfland faintly blowing,'"
quoted Pratt.  "Really, it seems a pity, after
all, to leave a spot which one can imagine the
haunt of fairies, the seat of an enchanted palace,
the----"

"Don't start the sentimental strain!" Armstrong
interposed.  "Suppose your horns of Elfland
are a signal, too?"

"Jehoshaphat!  What a synthetic mind you
have, old bird!  I shouldn't be surprised if----  But
no! it won't wash.  A signal that depended
on the wind wouldn't be any good.  Leave me
some of my illusions, Jack.  Let me revel in
my romantic imaginings.  Call it Roland's horn,
appealing vainly for succour when the paladin was
fighting fearful odds in the pass of Roncesvaux."

"I think you'd better turn in, old man," said
Warrender.  "It's your last watch to-night.  We
none of us got much sleep last night, and that
crack on the head----"

"I'm cracked.  All right--wake me at two-twenty."

He withdrew into the tent.  His companions,
tired though they were, resolved to keep each
other company, and patrol the neighbourhood
of the camp till it was time to awaken Pratt.
Hour after hour passed.  Nothing disturbed them.
The wind increased to the force of half a gale,
and the sound from the ruins persisted with
scarcely a variation of pitch.  When two-twenty
came they agreed to let Pratt sleep on, and kept
vigil until the eastern sky was streaked with dawn.

"D'you hear the sound?" asked Warrender, suddenly.

"No; it's stopped.  But the wind is higher
than ever," Armstrong replied.

"That's queer.  The wind is in the same direction,
too.  Darkness and light oughtn't to make
any difference."

"Perhaps it has blown the old chimney-pot
clean off the roof.  I'll go down and have a look
presently.  I'm dog-tired.  We might take a couple
of hours' sleep now, don't you think?"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`FIRE!`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XIII


.. class:: center medium

   FIRE!

.. vspace:: 2

About eleven o'clock next morning Warrender
and Pratt landed from the motor-boat at the ferry,
and, inquiring of the ferryman the way to
Mr. Crawshay's house, struck up the hilly road that
ran westward from the right bank of the river.
Mr. Crawshay, it was true, had invited them to make
straight for the house across the fields; but they
had decided that it would be more becoming, on
this first visit, to observe the customary forms.

The house stood amid well-kept grounds, about
as far west of the river as Mr. Pratt's was in the
opposite direction.

The apple-cheeked maid-servant who answered
their ring announced that her master was out, and
would not return till the afternoon.  Disappointed,
they were leaving when Lilian Crawshay, who had
recognised Warrender's voice as she descended
the stairs, called to them.

"You wanted to see my father, Mr. Warrender?"
she asked, as they turned back.

"Yes; I'm sorry he's out, but we'll call again
this afternoon."

"What a pity, when you have so far to go!
Can't I give him a message?  Won't you come
in and see Mother?"

"It's very good of you, but we have some
shopping to do in the village, or Armstrong will
get no lunch.  It will be no trouble to come again.
We get up and down very quickly in the motor-boat."

"Well, then come up in time for tea.  Father
will be home then; he has only gone on some stupid
business of quarter-sessions.  And bring Mr. Armstrong
with you.  Mother was greatly interested
in the 'Three Musketeers.'"

"Thank you very much."

"Good-bye, then, for the present.  Tea is at
half-past four."

"Why didn't you tell her we can't all come?"
said Pratt, as they walked away.

"Because it's clear that the old man hasn't
said anything about our affairs, and I couldn't
anticipate him with explanations.  We'll toss for
the odd man."

On returning to the ferry Pratt went on to the
village to make some necessary purchases, leaving
Warrender to forestall gossip by informing Rogers
of their change of plan.  Warrender rapped on
the door.

"Bain't opening time yet," called a voice from
above.  Mrs. Rogers's head appeared at an open
window.  "Oh, beg pardon; 'tis you, sir.  We
have to be that careful; Constable Hardstone be
always on the prowl.  You'll find Rogers in the
garden, sir--through that little gate.  And if so
be you find he haven't got his hair on, I beseech
'ee to mind him of it; he's that careless of his
brains, and I know they'll be broiled some day."

The innkeeper, with his wig awry, was pinching
out his tomatoes.  He smiled when Warrender
told him of the projected removal of the camp.

"'Tis what I expected--ay, and all the village
likewise," he said.

"We find the island a trifle inconvenient, you
know," said Warrender, in pursuance of the
understanding he had come to with his companions
that their real reason should not at present be
disclosed.

"Ay sure, that's what we all said.  The neighbours
wondered how long you'd stand it."

"Stand what?" asked Warrender, wondering
whether any whispers of the truth had got abroad.

"Why, them sperits.  Flesh and blood you
can deal with, but when it comes to sperits they're
bound to get the better of you, give 'em time.
You can't get hold of 'em no way.  Smite 'em,
you might as well smite the wind.  I've been here
and there about the world in my time, and I tell
'ee I wouldn't spend a night on that island not if
you doubled my pension."

"Well, we did hear some very queer sounds last
night.  Of course, it was very windy.  I expected
rain to-day, but it has cleared up.  By the way,
are there any coastguards about here?"

"There's Lloyd's signal station away at the
point yonder.  I go over now and again for a
crack and a smoke with an old messmate of mine."

"How far is it?"

"Four mile or so.  You go past Mr. Crawshay's,
then sheer off to the left and get into the old
coastguard track over the cliffs."

"I'll take a walk out there some day.  We
haven't seen much of the neighbourhood yet.
There's no signal station in the village, of course."

"No; we're too far from the sea.  Have 'ee
heard what they're saying about Mr. Pratt, sir?"

"What's that?"

"Ah, poor gentleman.  'Tis feared he've gone
a-lost, or been swallered by lions, or summat.
'Tis the end of many a poor traveller."

"Why do they fear that?  Is there any news?"

"No; that's where 'tis; there be no news at
all.  'Tis five weeks since he went off, not a soul
knowing, as his way is; and Susan Barter up at
post office was saying only yesterday that there's
not been a single line from him to any o' they
people at the house.  'Tis never been knowed
afore.  As a rule there's a letter from Paris, or
Marseilles, or Brindisi--ay, from places farther
away; but this time not a line.  He'll be missed
in the parish, sir, if so be he've gone aloft, like
poor Tom Bowling."

Rogers proceeded to relate anecdotes of his
landlord--instances of his peppery outbursts and
splenetic quarrels with his county neighbours,
but more of kindly deeds and unobtrusive generosity
among his poorer tenants.

"And your friend be his nephew, to be sure!"
he added.  "Well, don't worrit the poor young
gent yet awhile.  No news is good news; maybe
there'll be word of him one of these days.  Susan
Barter is sure to tell us."

Presently Pratt returned, laden with sundry
parcels.  The boys took leave of Rogers, and by
half-past twelve were back in camp.  Armstrong
had nothing to report.  He declined at first to
make one of the tea-party, but when the spin
of a coin elected him against Pratt, he yielded to
Warrender's argument that it would appear
discourteous if only one of them accepted the
invitation.  Promptly at half-past four the two, wearing
grey flannels for the occasion, entered the grounds of
Mr. Crawshay's house, and were met on the drive
by the owner himself.

"Glad to see you, my lads," he said, heartily.
"You've something to tell me?  I guessed it.
Now, not a word before the ladies.  I haven't
told them anything of your troubles; best not
to disturb them, you know.  We'll have a talk in
private, after tea."

The consequence was that presently Armstrong
found himself left in the company of Mrs. Crawshay
and her daughter, while Warrender was taken by
Mr. Crawshay to his study.

It had been decided that nothing should be
said to the old gentleman about the visit to the
Red House, the mysterious doings of Rush at sea,
or the strange light Pratt had seen among the trees.
Determined as the lads were to probe the mystery
to the bottom, they felt that their purpose might
be defeated by any premature activity on the part
of the county magistrate.  Accordingly, when
Mr. Crawshay and Warrender were seated in deep
armchairs facing each other, and the former said,
"Now, my lad, what is the latest news?" Warrender
simply related the incident of the midnight
visit to the camp, concluding--

"And so, sir, we have decided to accept your
offer of a camping-place on your land, not merely
to escape these annoyances--we should rather like
to hold our ground in regard to them--but because
we think we should stand a better chance of
discovering what really is going on."

"Ah, what does that mean?  There's more
in it than appears?"

"If you don't mind, sir, I won't tell you details
now; but we have found out one or two facts
that have given rise to certain suspicions.  By
removing from the island we feel that we shall be
better able to put them to the test, and when our
information is complete we will lay it before you."

"Well, I won't press you.  Many a rogue has
escaped justice because the case against him has
been badly prepared.  Tell me all in your own time.
Now as to your camp.  There's a little natural
dock in my bank of the river.  I'll put on my
gardener and odd man to make a small clearing for
you.  It's too late to-day; the men knock off
at five--eight hours' day, you know.  But you
can bring your boat up the river, and put up for
the night with me."

"Thank you, sir; but we have a little errand
at the signal station before we go back--it might
be rather late before we could get everything packed
up.  I think we had better wait till the morning."

"Very well.  You may have fresh light on the
matter then.  I shall expect all three to lunch
to-morrow.  On my land you won't need to guard
your camp."

Taking leave a little later, the boys walked
across the cliffs to the signal station.  On inquiry
from the man in charge they learnt that the steamer
seen late on the previous evening was the *Katarina*,
from Helsingfors for New York.

"Did you notice a small boat pull out to her?"
asked Armstrong.

"Rush's boat," replied the man.  "It didn't
pull out to her; 'twas out before she came in sight.
Rush has some lobster pots out there.  He's a
well-known character in these parts."

They thanked their informant, and retraced
their steps.

"She was a Russian boat," remarked Armstrong.
"No secret about her name or course.
All the same--a Russian newspaper, a Russian
secretary at the Red House, Russian petrol cans,
a Russian steamer.  Queer coincidences, at the
least."

It was nearly eight o'clock when they regained
the camp.  Pratt was humming "I dreamt that
I dwelt in marble halls" to the accompaniment
of his banjo.

"And how is the fair lady of the punctured
tyre?" he asked.  "Did she deplore my absence?"

"She did say something about 'that amusing
Mr. Pratt,'" Armstrong replied.  "I like her
mother."

"We're all going up to lunch to-morrow," said
Warrender, and explained the arrangements made.

"Then, as it's our last night on this island of
spooks, I vote that Armstrong and I go to the ruins
and track that weird sound," said Pratt.  "The
wind is high; we'll have time before dark."

Armstrong and he set off.  The breeze was
blowing in the same direction, and almost as
strongly, as on the night before, but no moaning
met their ears.  Arriving at the cottage, they
heard the characteristic whistle and hiss of wind
playing about the eaves, but not the tuneful, mellow
note that had reminded Pratt of an organ pipe.
They searched around the base of the walls for a
recently fallen chimney-pot.  There was none.

"Extraordinary!" said Pratt.  "No wonder
the rustics are jumpy.  Of course, there must
be some simple explanation--some slight change
of direction in the wind, I expect.  If you've ever
tried to play the penny whistle you'll know that
you can't always get a note, when you're a beginner.
We've had our walk for nothing."

They were half-way back to the camp; dusk
was just merging into darkness, when the organ-note,
riding, as it were, upon the rustle of the leaves,
struck upon their ears.

"By George!" exclaimed Pratt.  "One would
think the spook was just waiting for the dark.
Come back.  This is an acoustical phenomenon
worth writing about to some scientific rag."

They hurried back to the ruins, and sprang
up the staircase.  Pratt tracked the sound, as
before, to the partially unroofed room on the west
side.  Armstrong tried to climb up the jagged
brickwork of the outer wall, but found the footing
too insecure to persevere.  Baffled, they stood
for a while listening.

"It's no good," said Armstrong at last.  "It's
a job for daylight.  Besides, it's of no importance;
we've got more interesting mysteries to fathom."

"True, old matter-of-fact.  You haven't a
disinterested passion for science.  Well, I'll show you
where I saw the light from last night."

They went into the other room, and looked
across the river into the darkness, faintly patterned
by the nearer trees.  Suddenly, high up, a glow
appeared, shone for a second, disappeared, recurred.
They watched in silence.  Presently Armstrong
spoke.

"They're certainly signals.  Keep your eye
on them; count them."

There was a period of complete darkness; it
seemed that the signalling had ceased.  Then
the glow peered over the tree-tops again; it was
repeated at regular intervals, at first short, then
longer, then short again.

"It's like Morse," said Armstrong.  "Did you count?"

"Nine times."

"In groups of three?"

"Four, three, and two, I thought."

"So did I.  Well, if it's Morse, that spells VGI.
What on earth does that mean?"

"Goodness knows.  It's stopped.  Wonder if
it'll start again?"

A minute or two passed.  Again the glow
appeared, at intervals as before.  Again they
counted its appearances.

"Nine times.  Three groups of three--longs
and shorts.  I make that ROD."

"Well, that's a word, at any rate; and the
chef's name, by gum!  But what about VGI?"

"Perhaps I was mistaken.  We'll wait for the next."

But though they remained some ten minutes
at the window the glow appeared no more.

"A dashed fruitless expedition!" exclaimed
Pratt, as they descended the stairs.  "They used
to divide science into sound, light, and heat.  We're
flummoxed by sound and light; it only wants
heat to biff us altogether."

Before many hours had passed they had reason
to remember that almost prophetic utterance of
Pratt's.  It was his turn again to take the middle
watch, and at eleven-forty Armstrong wakened him.

"Hang you, Jack!" he cried.  "I was dreaming
I was blowing fire-balloons out of an organ
pipe, and I wanted to see the end of it.  All
serene?"

"Not a mouse stirring."

"Well, the air doesn't bite shrewdly.  I cap
your quotation, you see.  It's a warm sou'wester.
Can you hear that sound?"

"Just faintly.  I say, I believe I understand
that signal.  I've been thinking it over.  I've
had no particular practice in reading signals;
perhaps the fellow signalling is a novice, too.  In
that case one or other of us might easily make a
mistake.  It's clear he made three letters each
time; I fancy they weren't either VGI or ROD."

"What then?"

"S.O.S."

"What-ho!  The signal of distress at sea.  But,
I say, this is on land, old man."

"Yes; but I take it that it's a signal for help
that any one knowing Morse might make."

"But who wants help?  In my uncle's grounds?
Wait a jiff.  It was in the direction of the house.
I have it!  What a pudding-head I am!  Of
course, Rod's wife.  You remember she tried to
signal to you and Phil.  She's in trouble.  She's
being ill-treated, or something.  She's calling
for help.  We're to be knights-errant--Perseus
rescuing Andromeda----"

"Oh, shut up!  Is it likely that an innkeeper's
sister would know Morse?"

"Mark my words, I'm right.  A woman knows
everything she wants to.  Turn in, old chap.  I
wanted something to keep me awake, and I'll
cogitate a plan for rescuing Molly Andromeda
from the jaws of the Minotaur."

Pratt, however, found that cogitation was an
ineffectual preventive against drowsiness.  Three
disturbed nights in succession was an experience
unknown to him heretofore.  He paced about for
a little, sat down and lit a cigarette, dozed over it,
started up and walked again.  Once more he
sat down, ruminated, nodded--and presently awoke,
sniffing.  What was that smell of burning?  He
looked on the ground, where the half-smoked
cigarette lay.  It was dead.  He got up.  The
smell was in the air.  He took a few steps, looking
around.  His eye caught a flicker of flame to
windward--two, three flickers some yards apart.  For
a moment his drowsy intelligence failed to respond
to his senses; for a moment only.  Then he
shouted--

"Hi, you fellows!  Fire!  Fire!"

Already the flickers had been whipped by the
wind into a wall of flame, advancing with a hiss
and low roar from the thicket across the little
clearing.  The heat of the last few days had dried
the grass, which, though much trampled around
the tent, was still long.  The fire swept over it
like a ruddy tide.  Smoke surged across the open
space; twigs and leaves crackled in the surrounding
thicket.  When Armstrong and Warrender, awakened
by the shouts, the reck, the roar and crackle,
tumbled out in their pyjamas, they choked and
spluttered and fell back before the intolerable
heat and smother.

.. _`152`:

It was only too clear that the camp was doomed.
There was not time to lower the tent.  They rescued
what they could.  Armstrong dashed into the tent,
and returned dragging the three Gladstones that
held their clothes.  Pratt caught up a petrol can
and his banjo; Warrender secured his razor-case
and sponge-bag.  Driven by the remorseless flames,
they retreated hurriedly towards the river, working
round to the right until they arrived at a spot
on the bank that lay out of the course of the wind.
There they stood, coughing, watching the scene,
fascinated.  Springing from the south-west, the
fire raced across the island, like a giant cutting
with blazing scythe a path through the tough
undergrowth.  There was nothing to stay its advance.
The low flames danced beneath the trees, red goblins
in a dust of smoke, twigs and branches crackling,
the sappy wood adding rather to the smother than
to the blaze.

"Sound, light, and heat!" murmured Pratt.
"What a magnificent spectacle!"

"We've paid pretty dearly for our tickets!"
said Armstrong, morosely.

"And some one shall pay pretty dearly before
I've done with them!" cried Warrender.  "We're
homeless.  We'd better run up to the Ferry Inn,
and get Rogers to bed us."

"We'll be the talk of the village for a hundred
years," said Pratt.  "We'll pass into legend;
future ages will tell of the three magicians who
exorcised the spooks of No Man's Island with fire."

"Come and help shove off the boat," said
Warrender.  "We've still got that, thank goodness!"

The fire had burnt itself out at the north-east
of the island by the time the boat passed.  At
the ferry was assembled a crowd of the natives.
Rogers was in the act of setting off in Fisherman
Drew's boat, along with Blevins, Hardstone, the
village constable, and one or two more.

"Praise be!" exclaimed the innkeeper, as the
motor-boat ran alongside the stage.  "I was
afeared as you young gentlemen might be cinders."

"We're only smoked at present, dry-cured,"
said Pratt.  "Saved our bacon, you see."

"I want to know summat about this," said
the constable.  "I'll have to make a report.  If
so be you set fire to that there island, with the
terrible destruction of growing trees, I won't say
but 'twill be brought in arson, and that's five years'
penal.  Which one of you was it chucked down
the match?"

"My dear good man," said Pratt, blandly,
"we're only too anxious to give every assistance
to the officer of the law; but, as you see, we're
in a great state of nervous agitation.  D'you think
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were in a
condition to answer questions after their experience
of the fiery furnace?  Abed we go, if Mr. Rogers will
oblige us.  Come up in the morning, constable;
you're all losing your beauty sleep.  In the morning
we'll swear affidavits, or whatever it is you want.
To-night we're too tired even to swear.  Good-night."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A CIRCULAR TOUR`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XIV


.. class:: center medium

   A CIRCULAR TOUR

.. vspace:: 2

Fatigued though they were, the boys lay long
awake in the room Mrs. Rogers provided for them,
discussing the situation into which they had been
thrown by the fire, and their plans for the future.
They had saved next to nothing but their clothes.
If they were to start another camp a new
tent--almost a complete new outfit--would be
necessary.  Pratt suggested that they should accept
Mr. Crawshay's offer and take up their abode with
him until the mystery of the island had been solved;
but this idea was opposed by the others, Armstrong
in particular pointing out that they would
stand a better chance of success if they remained
more closely in touch with their former encampment.

"We must do our best to throw the beggars off
the scent," he said.  "If we rig up barbed wire
round our new camp, they'll imagine we're merely
on the defensive, and the longer we keep up that
illusion, the better."

"I agree," said Warrender.  "There can't be
the slightest doubt now that something is going on
on the island that they'll stick at nothing to
prevent our discovering.  We've got to make them
believe we can't see farther than the ends of our
noses, so we must keep quiet, pretend we think the
fire was caused by our cigarettes--anything to put
them off their guard.  But, of course, we must
take the first opportunity of making another
search in the ruins.  It's as plain as a pikestaff
that that moaning sound is artificial; that is to
say, they've got some sort of an instrument rigged
up that catches the wind just when they wish,
and only then.  And that signal must have
something to do with their schemes; I'm inclined to
think you're mistaken, Armstrong, and it's not
S.O.S. at all."

"Perhaps," replied Armstrong.

"I stick to it that Molly Rogers or Rod is in
distress," said Pratt.  "Rogers was a seaman,
and there's nothing unlikely in his sister knowing
something of Morse.  I had a passion for ciphers
at one time, and my sister Joan was very keen on
it, I can tell you.  Anyway, we'll ask Rogers in
the morning."

They got up to a late breakfast.  Rogers brought
them their bacon and eggs, and they were struck
by a peculiarity in his appearance.

"I say, Rogers, what's happened to your
beautiful auburn locks?" asked Pratt.

The innkeeper looked profoundly depressed.

"I begged and prayed the missus, but 'twas no
good," he answered.  "She will have me wear a
nightcap at night, and my hair by day, no matter
how hot it be.  I said as every one will laugh at
me, and she said as health comes afore feelings."

"A very wise woman.  Still, as a mere matter of
scientific curiosity, we'd like to know how that
brown became apple-green."

Rogers snatched off his wig and held it out with
a gesture of indignation.

"'Tis a trick of some blessed young scug in the
village, and if I catch him I'll give him all the colours
of the rainbow.  I did but set my hair on a
pea-stick while I was digging yesterday, the missus
being out for the day.  I own I forgot it, and when,
come night, I thought I'd better put it on, bless
me if I could find it.  Half an hour after I'd closed
the door the missus came home.  'Here's a parcel
on the doorstep,' says she, and then she undoes
it, and gives a shriek.  'You wicked man!' says
she: 'you've done it just to rile me.'  As if the
cussed thing warn't bad enough brown, for one to
want it green!  Of course I telled her as how I'd
put it down and missed it, and she went on like
one o'clock, said I'd have to wear it, green or blue,
and I'd better stand out in the first shower of rain
and see if it'd wash clean, and 'twould be a lesson
to me.  Don't you never go bald, young gentlemen:
'tis the way to break up a happy home."

"Hard luck, Rogers," said Pratt.  "But the
colour will soon wear off.  You'll be piebald for a
bit, I dare say--sort of mottled, you know; but
nobody will think the worse of you.  I say, you
and your sister were great pals, weren't you?"

"Till the missus come along, sir."

"And no doubt you taught her how to splice
ropes and reef sails, and make signals, and all that?"

"There you're wrong, sir.  The lass don't know
more than a babby about such things; and as for
signals, I don't know nothing about 'em myself."

Pratt looked crestfallen.

"One theory exploded," remarked Armstrong.

"Did 'ee signal for help last night?" asked
Rogers.

"Well, we----" Pratt began, but Warrender
interrupted him.

"No, we hadn't time," he said.  "The fire came
on us too suddenly.  By the way, we shall have to
buy some new things.  I suppose Blevins can
provide us with a tent?"

"Surely, sir; he've most everything somewhere
about.  I always thought no good 'ud come of
camping on that island.  There's a fate in it."

"How long has it had this ill name?" asked
Armstrong.

"Not so long, sir.  You see, nobody bothered
much about it after the old man died years ago.
It didn't belong to no one, seemingly; there was
nothing to take any of the folk there; and 'twasn't
till a month or two ago that they began to talk of
sperits.  Nick Rush came in all of a tremble one
night--he'd been away for a bit--and said he was
setting a snare there when he heard most horrible
groanings and moanings.  He took some of the
folk along, and they heard 'em too, and ever since
then the village have give it a wide berth.  You're
well out of it, that's what I say.  Not as ghosts
carry matches, though; I reckon 'twas one of you
young gentlemen a-smoking as did the mischief."

"A lesson to us, Rogers," said Pratt, gravely.
"Smoking is a very bad habit, according to our
masters at school--who all smoke like
furnaces--they ought to know."

They had hardly finished breakfast when
Mr. Crawshay drove down to the ferry in a light trap,
crossing on foot.

"It's true, then," he said, as he entered the
parlour.  "I knew nothing about it until an hour
ago.  A lighted match, they say."

Pratt got up and closed the door.

"Let them say, sir.  We were burnt out."

"You don't say so!  Upon my word, it's time
something was done.  Have you lost much?"

"Almost everything but our clothes."

"Scandalous!  Then you'll come up to the house?"

"We'd rather keep to our arrangement, sir,"
said Warrender.  "It will give us a better chance
of running the fellows to earth.  We think of
making a thorough search on the island.  The
difficulty is that we can't do it by daylight; we
are sure to be watched, at any rate for a day or
two.  There's another difficulty.  They're sure to
keep their eye on our motor-boat and dinghy; it
will be too risky to use them.  Of course, we
could swim the river, but it would be a bit of a
nuisance."

"I can help you there.  You had better not
use my skiff, but I've an old Norwegian pram in
one of my outhouses----"

"A what, sir?" asked Pratt.

"A pram--a sort of abbreviated punt.  At one
time I used it for fishing on the river.  It's small
and very light; two of you could carry it.  You
had better fetch it yourselves; my men might talk
in the village.  I have set them clearing a camping-place
for you, by the way.  It's about half-way
between here and the island.  But I can't lend you
a tent."

Warrender explained that he proposed to buy
one of the general dealer.

"Very well," said Mr. Crawshay.  "I shall
expect you to lunch.  We'll talk over things then
more at leisure."

While Warrender went off to do the necessary
shopping, Armstrong and Pratt, in the dinghy, set
out for their new camping-place.  It lay on the
shore of a little natural bay some fifteen yards
deep and about half that width.  Mr. Crawshay's
gardeners had already mown the long grass and
lopped some of the lower branches of overhanging
trees.  A ten minutes' walk through the wood and
across fields brought the two boys to the house,
where Mr. Crawshay had already arrived.  Having
seen that none of his men were about, the old
gentleman led them to the outhouse in which he
kept his pram; and by the time that Warrender,
conveying his purchases in the motor-boat, reached
the new encampment, the others had carried the
odd little craft across the fields, and found a secure
hiding-place for it in the wood a little distance from
the bay, almost opposite to the north end of the
island, near a spot convenient for landing under
cover of the trees.  With it Mr. Crawshay had lent
them a couple of light oars.

After erecting their new tent--a sorry specimen
compared with the one that had been destroyed--they
went up to the house for lunch, discussed their
plans with Mr. Crawshay privately in his study, and
returned to fence the camp with barbed wire and
get things in order.  So far there had been no sign
of the enemy; but in the course of the afternoon
Armstrong climbed a tree from which, unobserved
himself, he could obtain a view of the opposite bank
of the river, and discovered without surprise that
a spy was lurking among the bushes.  No doubt
all their ostensible proceedings had been watched,
and they congratulated themselves on the illusion
of mere defensiveness which their business-like
activity must have created.

During the remainder of the day they were
careful not to depart from their usual procedure.
They had an early supper; when they had
cleared away and washed up, they placed three
oddly assorted and shabby deck-chairs, purchased
from Blevins, in front of the tent, and while
Armstrong and Warrender read newspapers, Pratt
warbled sentimental ditties to the accompaniment
of his banjo.

Just before dark Pratt and Armstrong went into
the tent to go to bed, while Warrender perambulated
the camp armed with a thick club.  The spin of a
coin had decided that he should remain on guard
while the others paid a nocturnal visit to the
island.

About midnight, when it was quite dark, the two
raiders crept out of the tent, and striking inland for
a little, made their roundabout way to the spot
where the pram was hidden.  Reconnoitring
carefully, to assure themselves that their movements
had not been followed, they lifted the pram,
lowered it gently into the water, and pushed off,
floating on the tide near the bank, and steering with
one oar in the stern.  They struck the shore of the
island about midway, seized a projecting branch,
and drawing their craft into the bank, pulled it up
among the reeds at the edge.  Then they started to
cross the island.

It was pitch-dark in the thicket.  Spreading
roots and trailing brambles tripped their feet;
their faces were lashed by the foliage as they pushed
their way through; thorns caught at their clothes.
It was difficult to avoid noise.  Twigs snapped
underfoot, branches creaked and rustled, and every
now and again there was a strident shriek of
rent clothing as they tore themselves from the
embrace of some clinging bramble.  Heedless of the
obstacles, hot and weary, they plodded doggedly
on, and presently, after making unconscionably
slow progress, they emerged upon the bank of the
river.  The stream looked much wider than they
had expected.

"Whereabouts are we?" whispered Pratt.

"We've come too far south, I fancy," returned
Armstrong.

They peered up and down, trying vainly to
discover some landmark.  They stood listening;
there was breeze enough to cause the moaning, but
they heard no sound except the rustle of the leaves
and the gentle gurgle of the tide.  They cast about,
taking wary steps up stream and down; hoping in
one direction or the other to come upon the
wilderness garden.

Suddenly Pratt whispered: "I say, this isn't a
tidal river, is it?"

"No; it always flows down," replied Armstrong.  "Why?"

"Because----"

And then he stopped.

"Look here," he murmured to Armstrong behind him.

Armstrong looked, and there, at Pratt's feet, was
the dark shape of the pram, nestling in its bed of
reeds.

"Hang!" exclaimed Armstrong.  "We've been
going in a circle."

"Just so.  Everybody does it!" said Pratt,
with a chuckle.  "I suspected it when I noticed
the way the stream was flowing."

"Nothing to chortle about," Armstrong growled.
"We've had all our trouble for nothing.  Absolutely
waste time!"

"But look how we've enlarged our experience!
I think I'd like to be a traveller, like my old uncle.
I've read about these circular tours often enough,
but never believed in 'em.  Why can't one walk
straight in the dark?"

"Ask your grandmother!  I'm fed up; scratched
all over, too.  I'll not try this again without a
luminous compass.  Let's get back."

It was nearly two o'clock before they trudged
wearily into camp.

"Any luck?" asked Warrender, still doing sentry-go.

Pratt related what had happened.

"Well, I'm glad for once I lost the toss," said
Warrender, smiling.  "We'll certainly get a
luminous compass, and I fancy we'd be the better
for a few lessons from the Boy Scouts."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`UNDERGROUND`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XV


.. class:: center medium

   UNDERGROUND

.. vspace:: 2

The change of camp had relieved the boys of one
irksome tie.  There was no longer any need for a
constant guard.  The barbed wire, and Warrender's
patrolling of the camp, were merely ruses for the
deception of the enemy.  Next morning, therefore,
for the first time since their arrival, all three went
off together in the motor-boat, to make a trip down
the river and along the coast westward.  They
threw a keen glance at Rush's hut as they turned
the point.  Its door was closed; nobody was
about; and the only human being they saw in
the course of their expedition was one solitary
figure moving slowly along the top of the
cliff--possibly a coastguard.

They lunched on the boat, and did not return
until afternoon.  Leaving the others to prepare
tea, Warrender went on to the village, bought a
small luminous compass, and an electric torch
from Blevins's miscellaneous stock, and a few buns
at the baker's.  When he regained the camp, his
companions reported that there was no sign of its
still being kept under observation--by this time
the enemy was probably persuaded that their only
wish was to be left alone.  While they were having
tea, Rush rowed slowly past, going down stream.
He did not turn his head towards them, but Pratt
declared that he had given them a sly glance out
of the tail of his eye.

To keep up appearances, they decided that one
of them should remain on guard that night as
before.  The lot fell upon Pratt.  At nightfall the
others, equipped with the compass and torch and
two short stout sticks, put off in the pram, and,
landing on the island, without much difficulty
struck their old clearing--now clearer than ever,
and redolent of smoke and fire---and wound their
way to the ruined cottage.  The moaning sounded
more eerie than they had yet heard it, rising and
falling with the fitful gusts.

When they reached the old garden, they bent
low, approached the ruins under cover of the
tallest plants, and waited a while at the foot of
the wall before venturing into the entrance.
Warrender kept guard on the lower floor while
Armstrong, who knew the place better, explored the
upper storey thoroughly with the aid of the torch,
which he kept carefully shaded from outside view.
Above his head, somewhere on the roof, the dismal
note sounded continually.  He went into the
eastern room from which he had seen the signal
light.  No light was visible.  Returning below
stairs, he examined the whole of the premises with
equal care.  Everything was as it had been.
There was nothing to indicate that any one had
entered the place since his last visit.

"We shall have to make a night of it," said
Warrender.  "It was morning when Pratt saw
some one in the lower room.  It doesn't follow
that he comes every morning, or, indeed, that he
has ever come again; but we had better wait on
the chance."

"Let us go upstairs, then, and sit against the
wall where we can see the window.  I don't
believe that signal can be seen from the sea, and
the fact that it can be seen from here seems to
show that the signaller expects some one to be at
the cottage.  It won't be easy to keep awake, but
we mustn't fall asleep together."

With backs against the wall, arms folded, and
legs stretched on the floor, they sat watching.  No
light shone; there was no sound but those
produced by the wind in the leaves and that
monotonous, provoking, doleful wail from the roof.
Hour after hour passed.  Now and then each got
up in turn to stretch his limbs.  One or the other
dozed at times.  The still hours crept on; nothing
happened; it seemed that their patience was to
meet with no reward.

It was not until the faint grey tint of early dawn
was stealing up the eastern horizon that a sound
below caught Armstrong's attentive ear.  He
nudged Warrender dozing by his side.  Grasping
their sticks, they rose and tiptoed to the doorway.
Some one was clumsily mounting the stairs.  They
peeped out.  At the farther end of the landing a
large, dark shape rose from the staircase, turned
at the head, and went into the western room.
Slipping off his boots, Warrender crept stealthily
along the wall and looked in after the intruder.
The room was dark, but, against the twilight
framed by the window-opening, he saw the legs
and feet of a man disappearing upwards outside.
In a few moments there came scraping sounds
from the roof; the moaning suddenly ceased, and
after a little the man's feet reappeared; he was
lowering himself into the room.  Warrender stole
back; at Armstrong's side he watched the man
return across the landing to the staircase, and
heard his heavy footsteps as he descended.

"Watch from this window; I'll go to the other,"
whispered Warrender.

From these posts of observation, commanding
almost the whole of the surroundings of the cottage,
they looked for the emergence of the visitor.  He
did not appear; nor, after his footsteps had ceased,
did they hear a sound.  Had he gone into one of
the lower rooms?  Leaving Armstrong to keep
watch at his window, Warrender, in his stockinged
feet, stole down the stairs, and peeped into each
of the rooms and the kitchen and scullery in turn.
The dawn was growing; but the man was not to
be seen.  All was silent.  A slight whistle
summoned Armstrong; together the boys quietly and
rapidly ranged the lower floor, taking advantage
of the increasing light to search for some secret
hiding-place, some recess or cranny in the wall.
There was nothing.  The walls were too thin to
enclose space enough for a man to hide.  Where
had he gone?  He had not left the place by
doorway or window; he must be somewhere within.

"The cellar!" said Armstrong, remembering
the scrap of paper he had found there.

Warrender ran upstairs, slipped on his boots, and
returned.  The door at the head of the cellar
staircase was closed.  They opened it gently,
listening.  There was no sound from below.
Cautiously, step by step, they descended.  At
the foot of the staircase they held their breath for
a moment.  Then Warrender flashed the torch.
The cellar was empty.  They examined every inch
of the walls up to the height of a man.  The
brick-work was whole; not a brick was displaced, not a
seam of mortar missing.  They tramped over the
black, dusty floor; everywhere it was solid; there
was no hollow ringing beneath their feet.  Scraping
away a little of the coal dust, they found that the
floor also was of brick except at the foot of the
steps, where there was a large flagstone.  Something
caught Armstrong's eye.  He stooped.

"Look here," he said.  The joint between the
flagstone and the brickwork of the floor had a
sharp, well-defined edge.  The crevice was free
from coal dust.

"A little suspicious, eh?" said Warrender.
"Stamp on the stone."

"Hold hard!  What if that fellow is underneath it?"

"We've got to the point where we must take
risks.  But it's not credible that any one actually
lives down below, even if there is a below.  Try a
kick or two."

But there was no ringing sound when Armstrong
stamped; the stone was either laid firmly
on the earth, or it was so thick that, if there was a
hollow beneath it, the fact would not be detected.
Nor, when Armstrong trod heavily all over its
surface, was there the slightest sign of movement.

"Feel along the edge," Warrender suggested.

Armstrong went down on hands and knees and
drew his finger along the base of the lowest step.

"A slight crack here, at the left end," he said.

"Big enough to get your finger in?"

"No; it can't be more than an eighth of an inch
wide.  It's upright, between the step and the wall.
Looks as if the stone has shifted."

"Well, if you can't get your finger in, try your
knife blade."

"Wait a bit, there's another crack, smaller still,
right along the edge of the step, between it and the
upright slab."

They had both lowered their voices to a whisper.
Armstrong gave the upright a push, near the middle.
It was firm, unyielding.  But pushing leftwards, he
felt a slight movement, and at the extreme end, a
very gentle pressure caused the slab to swing
inwards easily, the right half of it at the same time
moving outwards.

"By gum, it works on a pivot!" exclaimed
Armstrong, under his breath.  "We're on the
track!  But this opening's only about six inches
wide; nobody but a baby could crawl through it."

For a few moments they held their breath,
listening for sounds.  All was silent.  Then
Warrender dropped on all fours and shone his torch
into the dark gap.  The space was empty.  Armstrong
thrust in his hand, and felt over the earthen
floor, then along the edge of the flagstone, and
finally beneath it.

"There's a hollow space here," he said.  "And,
I say, here's a metal hand-grip just below the
flagstone."

He tugged it; there was no movement.  He
pushed it on each side in turn, still without result.
Baffled, he sat on his haunches.

"What's the hand-grip for?" he said.  "Obviously
for moving something.  Then why doesn't
anything move?"

"Perhaps it can only be operated from below,"
Warrender suggested.  "If this is an entrance to
the cellar, it may be left open when any one comes
this way."

"That's not likely.  An entrance that can only
be opened from one side isn't worth much.  No,
something sticks, and if that fellow went through
a few minutes ago, it can't be for want of use.
*Why* does it stick, then?"

Armstrong pondered for a few moments, then
said suddenly, "Possibly it's my pressure on the
stone.  Let's try."

He moved back, so that the weight of his body
bore upon the rear instead of the fore end of the
stone.  Then, however, he found that he could not
reach the hand-grip.

"Why not try the other side?" said Warrender.
"There may be another grip there."

The other side of the staircase was open to the
cellar, and Armstrong was able to thrust his arm
into the aperture below the step without treading
on the flagstone.

"Got it!" he said, a moment later.  "There's
a grip here.  It moves in a quarter-circle.
Something--a disk of stone, I fancy--is revolving."

He pressed on the flagstone; still there was no
distinct movement downwards, though it seemed
to have yielded a trifle.

"Clearly it won't shift until the other grip is
turned," he said.  "But how to get at that?"

After a little consideration he had another idea.
Going a few steps up the staircase, he turned, and
crawled down head first until he was able to get his
hand under the edge of the stone.

"All right, old man," he said, cheerfully.  "I've
moved the grip now.  Keep clear of the other end
of the stone."

Lying full stretch on the staircase, he pressed
on the stone beneath him.  It sank gently; the
other end moved upwards, and in a few seconds
the stone stood upright in the middle of a dark gap.
Warrender bent down, holding the electric torch
just above the opening.

"The bottom's only about five feet deep," he
said.  "It's the end of some sort of passage.
Come down, old man, and we'll explore it together."

.. _`"'THE BOTTOM'S ONLY ABOUT FIVE FEET DEEP'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-173.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "'THE BOTTOM'S ONLY ABOUT FIVE FEET DEEP.'"

   "'THE BOTTOM'S ONLY ABOUT FIVE FEET DEEP.'"


They dropped lightly into the cavity.  By the
light of the torch they saw that on each side a flat
circular wheel of stone, lacking one quadrant,
moved on an iron axle in such a way that a
half-turn of the hand-grip removed the support of the
flagstone and allowed the corner to drop down.
The flagstone was nicely balanced on a revolving
iron rod let into a socket at each end.  This
contrivance formed the entrance to a narrow tunnel
about four feet wide, and something over five
feet high in the centre.  Neither of the boys could
stand upright in it.  The floor was of hard-beaten
earth; the walls and the arched roof were of
ancient brick, covered with an incrustation of
slimy moss.

"An old smugglers' tunnel, I'll be bound," said
Armstrong.  "It will be very odd if we have
struck a lair of modern smugglers.  Just look at
your compass and see what direction it takes."

The needle swung almost perpendicular to the
course of the tunnel.

"Eastward," said Warrender.  "That's strange.
I thought it probably ran south, to somewhere
near that place at the end of the island where we
saw the marks of a boat the other day."

"It seems to shelve downward slightly.  Looks
as if it runs under the channel."

"Towards Pratt's uncle's grounds.  Let's explore."

"Better switch off your light, then.  We can
find our way in the dark by touching the sides."

They went forward in single file, stepping
gingerly, and bending their heads to avoid the
roof.  The air smelt musty and dank, and was
unpleasant and oppressive.  For a time the floor
sloped gently downwards, but presently they were
aware that it had taken an upward trend.

"We've crossed the channel," said Armstrong
in a whisper that the vaulted walls made
unnaturally loud.

A little later they noticed ahead of them a space
dimly illuminated.  Moving forward cautiously,
they found themselves at the bottom of a circular
shaft.  Far above them they saw daylight in
parallel streaks.

"A dry well," murmured Warrender, "roughly
boarded over."  Consulting his compass, he added,
"Still eastwards.  Rummy if the tunnel goes to
the Red House."

Pursuing their way in utter darkness as before,
the floor still rising very slightly, they became
aware by and by that the tunnel had enlarged.
From the centre they could not touch the wall on
either side, and the greater lightness of the air
gave them a sense of spaciousness.  Suddenly
Armstrong, who was leading, stumbled over
something on the floor and fell forward.  His hands,
instinctively thrust out, were arrested by a bundle
encased in tarpaulin.  He straightened himself.
For a moment or two they waited, straining their
ears.  There was no sound.

"A light," murmured Armstrong.

The light revealed that they had arrived at a
small chamber about twelve feet square and seven
or eight feet high.  The farther end was broken
by the tunnel.  In each side wall, a foot below
the roof, were let a couple of iron rings, deeply
rusted.

"For holding torches," said Armstrong.

The chamber was empty except for three bundles
on the floor.  It was over one of these that
Armstrong had stumbled.  Two of them were
completely covered with tarpaulin, and roped; the
third was partly open at the top.

"They're like the bundles I saw Rush and the
other fellow carry up from the boat," said Armstrong.

"Queer smuggling," said Warrender, bending
over the open bale.  "It seems to hold nothing
but paper."

He took up the topmost sheet.  It was a thin,
semi-transparent paper, and crackled to the touch.

"This isn't newspaper," he said.

"Cigarette paper, perhaps," said Armstrong.
"But where's the 'baccy?"

"Can't smell any.  I wonder how much farther
the tunnel goes?"

Entering it at the extreme end of the chamber,
Warrender came within a yard to a contrivance
similar to that which gave access from the cellar.

"Here's the end," he said.  "Look, the grips
are turned.  Shall we risk lifting the stone?"

"Dangerous," said Armstrong.  "Goodness
knows where we'd find ourselves."

Scarcely had he spoken when from above came
the dull sound of footsteps.  Switching off the
light, Warrender backed into the chamber and
hastily crossed it with Armstrong, both moving
on tiptoe.  They re-entered the tunnel, crept along
for a few yards, then halted, listening breathlessly.
They heard the footsteps of one man in the chamber
they had just left.  The footsteps ceased, and were
followed by a rustling.  It seemed clear that their
presence was unsuspected, and they ventured to
tiptoe back until, near the opening of the tunnel,
they were able to peep into the chamber.  By the
dim light that came through the aperture left open
by the revolved flagstone on the farther side, they
saw a short, stout man drawing sheets of paper
from the opened package.  He counted them as he
took them up, and presently turned, carried them
through the opening, and let down the flagstone
behind him.  There was not light enough by which
to identify him.

.. _`"THEY SAW A SHORT, STOUT MAN DRAWING SHEETS OF PAPER FROM THE OPENED PACKAGE"`:

.. figure:: images/img-177.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "THEY SAW A SHORT, STOUT MAN DRAWING SHEETS OF PAPER FROM THE OPENED PACKAGE."

   "THEY SAW A SHORT, STOUT MAN DRAWING SHEETS OF PAPER FROM THE OPENED PACKAGE."

The boys re-entered the chamber, and listened
until the sound of his retreating footsteps above
had died away.  Then Warrender switched on the
light, took a sheet of paper from the top of the bale,
folded it, and put it into his breast pocket.

"Now for home," he whispered.  "We've
something for Percy to start a new theory on."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`WATERMARKS`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XVI


.. class:: center medium

   WATERMARKS

.. vspace:: 2

As they began to retrace their steps through the
tunnel, Armstrong said--

"If we count our paces we shall have some sort
of an idea where we've been to.  We know the
tunnel runs pretty nearly due east from the ruins,
and there must be a building at the end.  It seems
to me it's a choice between the Red House and
that old tower.  There's no other."

"True.  Well, we'll both count.  Bet you we
don't agree."

"People never do agree when the count is a
long one.  Besides, we can't keep step in the dark,
unless we left-right all the way, and I'm hanged if
I do that!"

They started.  Suddenly Warrender stopped.

"I say, we shall look pretty green if some one
has discovered that open trap in our absence--Rush,
for example."

"Frightful mugs, the two of us.  We ought to
have closed it.  But it's still very early in the
morning.  Let's hope Rush isn't up with the lark.
Hang it.  I've forgotten how many steps I'd
counted.  What do you make it?"

"Fifty-eight.  Concentrate your mind, my son."

"I'll start at fifty-nine, then.  Don't you think
we might venture on a light now?"

"Not for anything.  The tunnel's straight, and
if you've ever been in a straight railway tunnel
you'll know a light can be seen for miles.  Better
be on the safe side."

They completed the course in darkness.

"Well, what's your total?" asked Warrender.

"Two hundred and eighty-three."

"Mine's two hundred and ninety-one.  Not so bad."

On emerging into the cellar, they replaced the
flagstone and made sure that the hand-grips were
turned as they had found them.  Then they
mounted to the upper floor of the cottage.

"I want to discover how that moaning is caused,"
said Armstrong.

"But it means shinning up to the roof," said
Warrender.  "It's broad daylight now.  You
might be seen."

"So I might.  Well, let's take a look over
Ambrose Pratt's grounds."

They went into the eastern room.  The tower,
a little south of the house, appeared to be slightly
the nearer to them, but, ignorant as they were
of the exact length of their paces, they agreed that
the end of the tunnel might lie beneath either
of the buildings.

Going then into the room facing south, they
started back from the window.  Rush was tramping
along the weedy path leading to the southern
end of the island.

"Lucky I didn't climb!" murmured Armstrong.

They watched the man.  He seemed to be a little
suspicious, stopping every now and again to listen
and look round.  Presently he disappeared into
the thicket.

"Safe to go now?" asked Armstrong.

"Let's wait a bit."

Warrender kept his eyes fixed on the stretch of
river which was visible over the low trees
southward.  After a while he saw a small boat moving
slowly down stream.

"All right now," he remarked.  "I dare say
he's been spying out on our camp from the north
end.  Hope he hasn't missed us."

"Or found our pram!  Come on, I want my breakfast."

They stepped out of the cottage, regained the
western shore, discovered the pram where they
had concealed it, and, having crossed the river
unobserved, so far as they knew, laid the craft in
its former hiding-place, and returned to camp.
Pratt was busy at the paraffin stove.

"What ho!" he exclaimed.  "One must feed,
even when pain and anguish wring the brow.  I
made sure the spooks or some one had got you,
and after fortifying myself with bacon and eggs I
was going up to ask old Crawshay whether an
inquest would be necessary.  You look very much
washed out.  Been on the tiles?"

"I'll wring your neck if you don't hand over
that frying-pan," said Armstrong.

"Thy necessity is greater than mine.  As you
know, I'd lick Philip Sidney or any other old
paladin in chivalry.  Eat, drink, and be merry.
There's enough coffee brewed for us all.  Make a
fair division of the bacon and eggs between you,
and I'll fry some more in a brace of shakes.  I say,
I am jolly glad to see you!  I've had the deuce of
a time!"

"More pin-pricks?" asked Warrender.

"No.  But I'm blessed--or cursed--with a very
vivid imagination, as you are aware.  I stayed up
till daybreak, expecting you back every minute,
and when you didn't come I got in a regular stew,
saw you tumble from the roof, and your members
all disjected over the garden--horrid sight!  Saw
you knocked on the head, trussed and gagged in
the cellar; boated off to France; growing
white-haired in a dungeon like that fellow in the
Bastille--you know, finger nails a yard long--mice
and rats and toads.  Toads were the last straw,
I saw 'em hopping about, and----"

"That bacon done?" said Armstrong.  "How
many bottles of ginger-beer did you drink?"

"I am not drunk, most noble Festus.  But I
say, what *did* happen?"

"I'd have told you already," said Warrender,
"only I couldn't get a word in."

"That's the reward of patience!  I only
twaddled, you juggins, to give you a chance to
feed.  You did both look awfully done up.  The
hue of health is returning now.  Fire away, then!"

Warrender, between the mouthfuls, related the
experiences of the night, Pratt showing unusual
self-restraint as a listener.

"My poor old uncle!" he exclaimed at the conclusion
of the story.  "He can't be convicted as
an accessory, can he?"

"Of course not," replied Warrender.  "No one
could hold him responsible for what his foreign
crew are doing in his absence.  It's a pity you
don't know where he's gone.  A cable or a
Marconigram would bring him home post-haste."

"I might, perhaps, ask Gradoff for his last
address."

"The less we have to do with Gradoff the better,
until we have got to the bottom of the business.
Just run down to the boat, will you, and bring up
our map."

The scale of the map was two inches to the mile.
A moment's examination proved that the tower,
marked on the map, lay within a radius of
one-eighth of a mile from the island.

"There isn't much doubt that the far end of the
tunnel is under the tower," said Warrender.
"The house is a trifle beyond.  Didn't you ever
hear of the smugglers' passage, Percy?"

"Never.  All I know about it is the tradition
that some one was starved in the tower centuries
ago.  My sister and I used to play in it as kids;
it was a mere ruin then; no roof, no boarding on
the windows."

"I wonder if a local guide-book would give any
information?" said Armstrong.

"Good idea!  We'll see presently," said Pratt.

"But we're not studying antiquities," Warrender
remarked.  "The essential point is, what
are those beggars using the place for now?  What
are they doing with those bales of paper?  Come
into the tent, and I'll show you the specimen I
bagged."

Within the shelter of the tent he unfolded
the sheet, and the others bent over it curiously,
fingering it.

"It has a sort of parchmenty feel, and it's
much too thick for cigarette paper," said Pratt.
"Is there a watermark?"  He held it up to the
sunlight.

"Jiminy!" he exclaimed.  Whipping out his
pocket-book he took a pound note, and held it
beside the larger sheet.  "Look here!  The
watermark's almost, but not quite, the same.  A dashed
clever imitation.  Here are the words, 'One pound,'
crowns, diagonal hatchings--everything.  The
beggars are forging Bradburys."

The sinister discovery almost robbed the others
of breath.  There could be little room for doubt.
Such paper, so marked, could be used for only one
purpose.  A flood of light was poured on all the
mysterious events of the past week.  The paper was
brought from abroad, and landed as a rule on the
island in preference to the coast, to avoid the risk
of interference by coastguards; also, no doubt, for
greater ease of transport.  Rush was employed
because he was a well-known figure in the
neighbourhood, and could go up and down the river in
his boat without awakening suspicion.  He might
or might not know the contents of the bales;
what was clear was that the printing of the notes
must be done either in the tower or in Mr. Pratt's
house.  The foreigners had entered his service
with no other end in view than their criminal
work.  Gradoff, the head of the gang, had probably
known in advance of Mr. Pratt's intention to
travel, and had astutely seized the opportunity of
carrying on his operations in this remote spot, on
the premises of an eccentric gentleman who was
something of a recluse, and prone to quarrel with
his neighbours.

"They're clever blackguards," said Pratt.  "No
wonder the island is haunted!  And I say, Molly
Rod's peculiar actions the other day are explained.
She has found out what's going on, and being a
decent Englishwoman, wants to stop it, husband
or no husband.  You may say what you like,
Jack; I'm certain it is she who makes those signals,
and, of course, my poor old uncle is absolutely
ignorant of everything.  He'll be in a terrific bait
when he knows."

"What's our next move to be?" asked
Warrender.  "Inform the police?"

"Certainly not that fellow who yarned about
arson the other night," said Armstrong.  "It's a
matter for the Chief Constable."

"Or Mr. Crawshay?  He's a magistrate,"
suggested Pratt.

"And an impetuous old hothead," rejoined
Armstrong.

"Plenty of common sense, though," said
Warrender.  "You remember, he said a good case is
often lost through being ill prepared?  Well, we've
still only suspicion to go on.  There's no earthly
doubt about it, of course; but wouldn't it be best
to catch the forgers in the act before we call in
the law?"

"It means loss of time," said Armstrong.

"That doesn't matter to us.  You see, if we set
the authorities at work now, they might send a
bobby to the house to make inquiries, and give
clever scoundrels like those a chance to get away.
But if we can go to them and say definitely, 'An
international gang of forgers is printing notes in
the Red House, and here's one of the forgeries,'
the matter becomes much more important, and
they'd take steps to secure the whole crowd without
the possibility of failure.  To my mind we'd better
keep everything a dead secret until we've got
positive proof."

"I concur with my learned brother," said Pratt.
"Besides, we've got so far with it that I own I
should hate to see it taken out of our hands.
Furthermore and finally, it's good sport, and a
ripping holiday adventure."

"That's the best argument of the lot," said
Armstrong.  "The only sound one.  I confess I'd
like to get into the tower, and see them at it."

"We'll go through the tunnel again to-night,"
said Warrender.  "If we can't find an entry that
way, we'll try the outside."

"I make a third to-night," said Pratt.

"We must leave some one in camp, if only for
appearance's sake," said Warrender.  "I think
Armstrong and I had better go again, as we know
the course.  Hope you don't mind.  Your turn
will come, Percy."

"Well, I'd like to feel myself a martyr, but
unluckily I've got a certain amount of common
sense, and I can't help admitting you're right.
Hadn't you better take a snooze, then?"

"I intend to," said Armstrong.  "We'll sleep till
lunch; this afternoon we'll go to the village and get
a guide-book.  We want some more bacon, too."

"And I'll start preparing our case," said Pratt.
"We'd better have it in writing, so I'll draw up
an account of our discoveries so far.  Shouldn't
wonder if it becomes a classic document in the
archives of Scotland Yard."

After lunch Armstrong and Warrender set off
up the river in the dinghy for the sake of exercise.
They made various purchases in the village, and
obtained a small guide-book at the post office.
It contained a few lines about the tower, which
Warrender read aloud as they returned to the
ferry: "In the grounds of the Red House are the
remains of a square tower, believed to date from
the troublous times of King Stephen.  There is a
tradition that in the thirteenth century a certain
baron was incarcerated there by an ancestor of
the present owner, and starved to death.  At one
time open to the public, since tourists cut their
initials in the oaken beams it has been closed to
sightseers."

"Not a word about smugglers, you see,"
remarked Warrender.  "The secret was evidently
very well kept."

Rogers happened to be cleaning his windows as
they passed, and they turned to have a chat with
him.  Warrender discreetly led the conversation
to the subject of the tower.

"Ay, 'tis the only old ancient curiosity we've
got in these parts," said the innkeeper.  "I know
the place, though I haven't been there since I was
a nipper, thirty odd years ago.  Us youngsters
used to like to climb the winding stairs; 'twas open
in those days.  Had no roof then.  Mr. Pratt a
few years back did some restoring, as they call it;
put on a flat roof.  My friend Saunders, his old
butler, told me the top room was used as a sort of
museum; Mr. Pratt kept there a whole lot of
curiosities he'd collected in his travels.  I mind
as how my neighbour Parsons, the builder, was
affronted because the building job was done by a
firm from Dartmouth, and so far as I know none
of the village folk have been inside the place since.
Mr. Pratt was very particular after he'd rigged up
his museum; wouldn't let anybody in except his
special cronies; and 'tis always locked up when
he's away, so if you young gents had an idea of
visiting it, I'm afeard you'll be disappointed."

"We should certainly have liked to see the
museum," said Warrender.  "There's nothing else
very interesting, apparently.  But no doubt the
curiosities are valuable, and Mr. Pratt is quite
right to lock up the place.  Have you seen your
sister, by the way?"

"Not a sign of her.  She've deserted us quite.
She won't even see Henery Drew's milkman, I
suppose becos Henery fought her husband's friend,
Jensen.  I call it downright silly, but there, who'd
be so bold as to say what a woman'll do next?
There's my missus----"

"Now, Joe," called Mrs. Rogers from within,
"get on with they winders, my man.  There's all
the pewters to shine afore opening time."

Rogers gave the boys his usual rueful smile, and
they went on their way.  Rowing with their faces
up stream, they did not notice until they pulled in
to the landing-place above the camp that the
motor-boat no longer lay at her moorings.

"Have those beggars let her drift again?" said
Warrender, angrily.  "Pratt!" he called.

There was no answer.  They looked down the
river.  The boat was not in sight.  Hurrying to
the tent, with the expectation of finding Pratt
asleep there, they discovered that it was untenanted.

"What the dickens!" exclaimed Warrender.
"Surely he hasn't gone larking with the boat?
He always prided himself on knowing nothing
about her working!"

"Seems to me they've run off with him and the
boat too," said Armstrong.  "Where's his banjo,
by the way?"

It was neither in the tent nor on the chair
outside, where Pratt sometimes left it.

They looked blankly at each other for a moment,
then Warrender exclaimed--

"Come on!  This is serious!  I can't believe
he's kidnapped.  What's the use of that?  Let us
row down--perhaps he hasn't gone far."

They ran to the bank, sprang into the dinghy,
and sculled rapidly down stream, every now and
then turning their heads to scan the river, the
banks, the island, for a sign of the motor-boat.
They had almost reached the mouth when
Armstrong suddenly cried--

"Listen!  Isn't that a banjo?"

They shipped oars.  Faintly on the breeze from
seaward came the strains of "Three Blind Mice."  A
few strokes brought the rowers round the slight
bend.  Looking out to sea they descried, about half
a mile away, the motor-boat, stationary, lapped by
white-crested wavelets.

"By George!  He's picked up some girls,"
exclaimed Armstrong.

There were certainly two parasols, a pink and a
blue, at the stern of the boat.

"The young dog!" cried Warrender.  "And got
them stranded on a sandbank.  But 'Three Blind
Mice!'  He's a rummy idea of entertaining girls."

The sound of the banjo ceased.  "Ahoy!"
came from the boat, and the two parasols were
agitated.  The scullers pulled on.

"Heavens!  It's Mrs. Crawshay and her
daughter," said Warrender, after glancing over
his shoulder.  Armstrong grinned.

"Twig?" he said.  "Master Percy has been showing off."

"Silly young ass!  Jolly lucky he hasn't wrecked
'em!  I shall have to talk to him."

They rowed almost up to the boat, keeping clear
of the sandbank.

"Hullo, old sports," said Pratt.  "Really, Phil,
you ought to carry a chart--an up-to-date one,
you know, that would show all the coral reefs and
other traps for the hapless navigator.  The
Admiralty ought to mark 'em with buoys or lightships
or something, but you can never expect anything
from the Government.  There's no danger, of
course.  I assured the ladies that they needn't be
the least bit nervous or frightened, but it's annoying
to be pulled up when you don't want to be.  I'm
sure a 'bus conductor must get frightfully annoyed
when the old 'bus is spanking along and somebody
wants to get in or out.  I dare say you've noticed
it, Mrs. Crawshay; the conductor is so ratty at
being interrupted that he simply won't see the
umbrella you're waving at him from the kerb.
Mrs. Crawshay and Miss Crawshay were kind enough
to pay a call on us at the camp this afternoon.  It
was just after you had gone, and as it was far too
early for tea, I thought it would be interesting--what
they call a treat, you know"--Pratt's
impetuous tongue had fairly run away with his *savoir
faire*--"to take the ladies for a spin, especially as
they had never been in a motor-boat before.  I
promised faithfully to bring them back to tea;
you got some meringues and things, of course--and
I have a distinct grudge against fate for
making me out to be not a man of my word.
There's no armour against----"

"Oh, Mr. Pratt, please!" Lilian Crawshay
implored.  "Mr. Warrender, can you get us off?"

"I have given up all hope of tea," said
Mrs. Crawshay, good-temperedly.  "We have friends
coming to dinner, and Mr. Pratt tells me that we
must wait till the tide turns.  Will that be long?"

"Three hours or so, I'm afraid," replied
Warrender.

"Dear, dear!  We shall be very late, Lilian,"
said Mrs. Crawshay.

"Can't you tug us off?" asked the girl.

"I'm sorry to say we haven't a hawser.  But I
think we could pull the dinghy near enough for
you to get into it, if Mrs. Crawshay would venture?"

"I'll venture anything rather than wait here
three hours," said the lady, "though Mr. Pratt has
been most kind.  I have really quite enjoyed it,
but three hours more, you know----"

"It would be rather awful!" said Warrender,
with a glance at Pratt, who having succeeded
in his object, to prevent certain disclosures, was
mopping his brow in the background.  Now,
however, he came forward.

"That's right, Phil," he said.  "No nearer, or
you'll run aground too."

He leapt overboard, and stood up to his knees in
water.  "I'll hold the boat's nose, Mrs. Crawshay.
Or perhaps I might take you in my arms and----"
"Bless the boy!  You're getting your feet wet.
No, no!  I don't think you shall take me in your arms."

"Or try pick-a-back?  Or shall I make myself
into a gangway for you to walk over?  I'd stand
perfectly firm."

"If you would give me a hand!  Lilian, my
dear, jump in first.  Then you can each give me a
hand, and I shall manage very nicely.  Dear me!
What an adventure for an old woman!"

"Not at all," said Pratt.  "I mean----"

"I am sure you do," said Mrs. Crawshay,
interrupting.  "Will you take my parasol?"

Pratt meekly relieved her of the parasol, then
turned to help the girl into the dinghy.  Lilian,
however, sprang in without his aid, and between
them the two boys assisted the mother, who gave
a sigh of relief as she sank down upon the thwart.

.. _`"BETWEEN THEM THE TWO BOYS ASSISTED THE MOTHER"`:

.. figure:: images/img-193.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "BETWEEN THEM THE TWO BOYS ASSISTED THE MOTHER"

   "BETWEEN THEM THE TWO BOYS ASSISTED THE MOTHER"

"We'll come back for you presently, Pratt,"
said Warrender, stiffly.  "Don't attempt to run
up, mind."

"Good-bye, Mr. Pratt," said Mrs. Crawshay.
"And thank you so much.  When you come up to
dinner, be sure to bring your banjo."

The two boys pulled off, Pratt climbing back
into the motor-boat.

"What a clever, amusing person Mr. Pratt is,"
said Mrs. Crawshay to Armstrong, facing her.
"So ready!  And an excellent performer on the
banjo!  We could never be dull in his company.
He talked most amusingly, then sang us song after
song.  Don't you think 'Two Eyes of Blue' very
pretty, Mr.----"

"Rather sentimental, isn't it?" said Armstrong,
blushing.

"All his songs are sentimental.  He was playing
a very funny tune, though, when you came round
the bend.  I was sure his voice was getting tired,
and asked him just to play.  The tune was quite
unknown to me, but I thought it very cheering."

Meanwhile, at the other end of the boat, Lilian
had been giving explanations to Warrender.

"He intended just to bring us to the mouth of
the river, but seemed to have some difficulty in
turning round.  I think he said he wanted more
sea-room.  At any rate, he ran out to sea, and
then we stuck on that wretched sandbank.  He
talked and sang to amuse us; he has quite a
pleasant voice, but his songs are dreadfully
sentimental, aren't they?"

"Frightful tosh!" returned Warrender.

"Well, it was very good of him, especially when
he must have been much annoyed at the mishap,
which, of course, wasn't his fault."

"No, of course not," said Warrender.

"You speak as if you thought it was."

"Oh, no.  Any one might run on a hidden
sandbank.  But the fact is----"

"Yes?"

"You see, he was in charge of the camp."

"You mean he oughtn't to have come at all?"

"Naturally he thought it would please you and
Mrs. Crawshay, but----"

"Oh!"

The girl said no more.

"She thought I was jealous, or huffy, or
something," Warrender confided to Armstrong later.
"I wonder what she'd have said if I'd told her
that the idiot had never run a motor-boat before?"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE TOPMOST ROOM`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XVII


.. class:: center medium

   THE TOPMOST ROOM

.. vspace:: 2

It was in the evening twilight that Armstrong
and Warrender put off in the pram for their second
expedition to the tunnel.  On reaching the ruins,
Warrender posted himself in one of the lower
rooms, while Armstrong mounted to the upper
floor, intent on discovering the source of the
ghostly moans.  Climbing out of the window
opening, and pulling aside the ivy, he found that
steps had been made in the brickwork of the
crumbling wall, by means of which any one with
a steady head might with ease ascend to the roof.
And there, behind one of the gables, partly
protected from the weather, he came upon a long
metal organ pipe laid flat, and near it a large
funnel-shaped object.  A strong breeze was blowing
from the south-west, but the organ pipe gave forth
no sound.

Still puzzled as to the manner in which the
sound was produced, and reflecting that Pratt
would probably have jumped to it at once,
Armstrong heard a low whistle from below.  He
scrambled hastily down, and had only just slipped
into the eastern room when he heard lumbering
footsteps upon the stairs.  From the doorway he
watched the man whom he had seen in the morning.
A minute or two after the new-comer had entered
the western room, the moaning broke out.
Armstrong waited until the man had descended and all
was quiet again, then once more climbed upon the
roof.  The mystery was solved.  The funnel had
been so adjusted as to catch the wind, and direct
it with some force into the mouth of the organ pipe.
It turned like a weather-cock, so that the sound
was independent of the veering of the wind.

Rejoining Warrender, Armstrong informed him
of the discovery, and suggested that he should
examine the contrivance for himself.

"I'll take your word for it," said Warrender,
smiling.  "I don't care about steeple-jack feats
in half darkness.  We'll wait a little before we
follow that fellow through the tunnel.  Let's go
up and watch for the signal."

It was perhaps half an hour later when the light
appeared above the tree-tops.

"Most certainly it's S.O.S.," said Armstrong,
after counting the recurring glows.

"I shouldn't wonder if Pratt is right after all,
and it's Molly Rod signalling.  He was right about
the organ pipe."

"Doesn't it occur to you that the light may
come from the tower?"

"But if the forgers are at work there, why
should any one signal?"

"Can't we discover whether it's from the tower
or the house?"

"We can't take any bearings in the dark.
Stay, though.  If we move back from the window,
and go to the side of the room, perhaps we'll find
a spot where the light just becomes invisible.  I'll
mark that on the floor, and in daylight there'd be
no difficulty."

Acting on this suggestion, they were not long
in discovering the required spot.  Warrender
scratched a pencil mark on the floor; then they
descended to the cellar, cautiously lifted the
flagstone, and groped their way through the tunnel
until they came to the chamber at the end.  Nothing
was altered there, except that the opened bale of
paper had been removed.  They had intended to
enter the archway on the farther side, and lift the
flagstone which, they suspected, closed the entrance
to another cellar; but from above there came dully
a succession of regular thuds which proved that
somebody was about, and active.

"I dare say that's the press at work," said
Warrender in a whisper, after they had listened
for a few minutes.

"Doing overtime," said Armstrong.  "I suppose,
not knowing exactly when Mr. Pratt will return,
they want to make the most of their opportunity.
Who knows how many thousands of pounds of
spurious money are getting into circulation?  No
doubt Gradoff had his trunk full of notes that
morning we saw him driving off in the car."

They seated themselves on the unopened bales,
hoping that work would presently cease, and the
man would leave the tower.  But the thuds
continued with monotonous regularity.

"Every thud means a forged note," said
Armstrong.  "They may be going on all night.  How
long can you stick it?"

"We'll wait till eleven; then if they're still at
it, we'll go back and reconnoitre the outside."

"Perhaps they have a sentry."

"Perhaps; but I fancy they'll feel pretty safe
now that they've chevied us from the island."

At eleven o'clock the work was still going on.
The boys retraced their course to the ruins, regained
the pram, and allowed it to drift on the current
down channel to the south of the island.  There
they lay to for a few minutes, listening, peering
through the darkness.  There was no moon; the
starlight scarcely revealed the outlines of the
trees.  Presently, with careful, soundless
movements of the sculls, they rowed across to the left
bank, and, pulling the craft out of sight, landed a
little below the island, and laboriously pushed their
way through the thicket, guiding themselves by
the compass.  Some fifty yards from the bank the
vegetation thinned, and they found themselves
in a wood of taller trees.  Here the going was
easier, though once or twice they stumbled over
trunks that had been felled and stripped ready for
carting.  Emerging from the wood into park-like
ground, where there were large trees only at
intervals, they progressed still more rapidly, and
at last caught sight, on their left, of the dim,
square shape of the tower.  Behind a broad elm
they stood for a minute or two, watching.  There
was no light in the tower.  Its base was
surrounded by a mass of low-growing shrubs.  The
doorway, no doubt, was on the farther side from
them.  The walls were covered with ivy, except
at the window openings, where the recent boarding
was visible as faint grey patches.

"Now for it," whispered Warrender.

They stole forward over the long grass.  As
they drew nearer to the tower they heard the dull
regular thudding; there was no other sound.
Armstrong posted himself at one corner, while
Warrender gently pushed a way through the shrubs
to the wall.  He examined the boarded window,
apparently an old embrasure much widened.
The boards were on the inside; the outside was
protected by cross bars of iron.  He went round
the building.  There was only one other window
opening on the ground floor.  At the north-eastern
angle he halted, looking out for a possible sentry,
then crept along until he reached the entrance,
a low iron-studded door flush with the wall.
Putting his ear against the wood, he heard more
clearly the metallic thuds, and men's voices.  A
footstep approached.  He slipped back to the
corner, and crouched in the shelter of a shrub.
The door opened outwards, creaking on its hinges,
and letting out a stream of light.  A short, stout
figure emerged from the tower, carrying a number
of cans which rattled as he walked.

"*Fermez la porte!*"

The words, in a savage, half-suppressed shout,
sounded from some little distance away in the
direction of the house.  The man addressed hastily
closed the door behind him, and went on.
Warrender saw another man meet him.  They stopped
and exchanged a few words.  Rod continued his
way to the house, his progress faintly marked by
the rattling cans.  The other man came towards
the tower.  He opened the door quickly, slipped
inside, and shut it.  In the one second during
which the light shone out, Warrender recognised
the pale face of Paul Gradoff.

He hurried round to the spot where Armstrong
had remained on guard.

"All right!" he whispered.  "No sentry.  Rod
has just gone to the house; Gradoff has gone in."

"Well," returned Armstrong, "what can we do?"

"We'll try the door first of all.  Come on!"

They moved with slow, careful steps round the
tower, came to the door, and gently tried the
handle.  There was no yielding; the door was
fastened.  They went on to the western face of
the tower.  Here also there was a window opening
on the ground floor, as securely boarded up as the
other.  At equal intervals above it were two other
embrasures, similarly blocked.

"No way of getting in," murmured Armstrong.

The sound of the door creaking sent them
scurrying to cover in the undergrowth.  When all was
silent again, Warrender whispered--

"Come among the trees.  We can talk more
freely there."

They crept over the ground, and took post
under a tall, thick-leaved beech nearly a hundred
yards away.

"I don't see any chance of getting in," said
Warrender, "and that's a pity.  I wanted to
see them actually turning out their forged notes."

"I suppose it was Gradoff going out again we
heard just now," said Armstrong.  "If he and
Rod are both away, there can't be more than
four others in the tower, probably not so many.
They'll take turns at night-work."

"That doesn't matter.  Any forcible entry is
quite out of the question, if that's what you're
thinking of.  I say, isn't that a light up the
tower?"

More than half-way up the wall a faint streak
of light was visible.

"Evidently there's some one in the top room,"
said Warrender.  "Some one sleeps there, I
suppose.  The machine is on the ground floor.
Where light gets out, we should be able to see in.
You've done some climbing already to-night;
are you game to clamber up the ivy?  There's no
other way."

"I weigh eleven stone," said Armstrong, dubiously.

"But ivy's pretty tough.  It may support
you.  You may find foothold in the wall."

"Hanged if I don't try.  You'll stand
underneath and break my fall if I tumble.  I reckon it's
about thirty feet up; plenty high enough to break
one's neck or leg."

They hastened to the foot of the tower.  With
Warrender's help, Armstrong got a footing in the
lower embrasure.  Then, taking firm hold of the
stout main stem of the ivy, he began to swarm up,
seeking support for his feet in the thick, spreading
tendrils and in notches of the stone-work.
Warrender watched him hopefully.  Slowly, inch by
inch, he ascended.  He gained the second
embrasure, rested there a few moments, then climbed
again, and was almost half-way to his goal, when
he felt the ivy above him yield slightly.  Digging
his feet into the wall, he hung on, but at the first
attempt to ascend he felt that the attenuated stem
would no longer support his weight, and began
slowly to lower himself.

At this moment Warrender heard the door
creak, and threw up a warning whisper.
Armstrong stopped, effacing himself as well as he
could amongst the ivy, to which he clung with
the disagreeable sensation that he was dragging
it from its supports above.  Voices were heard;
heavy footsteps.  After a few moments they
ceased.  Were the men turning to come back?
Had they heard anything?  Then came the scratching
of a match.  Warrender drew relieved breath;
some one had halted, only, it appeared, to light his
pipe or cigarette.  The footsteps sounded again,
gradually receding, and finally died away.

"All safe!" whispered Warrender.

Armstrong let himself down, and stood beside
his friend.

"A quivery job," he murmured.  "My arms
ache frightfully.  It's not to be done, Phil.
Another foot up and I should have dragged down the
whole lot, possibly a stone or two as well.  We're
fairly beaten."

"The sound inside has stopped.  They've apparently
knocked off work; it's past midnight.  I
wonder if any one's left inside?"

"Why should there be?"

"Well, there was some one up above.  Is the
light showing still?"

They walked some distance away from the
tower, and looked up.  The thin streak of light, so
faint that it might have escaped casual observation,
still showed at the level of the topmost room.
They went to the door and again gently tried it.
It was shut fast.

"We had better get back," said Warrender.
"There's nothing to be done."

"Unless we try the tunnel again, now that all
is quiet inside."

"If you like."

They crossed the grounds with the guidance
of the compass, and presently came among the
medley of prostrate trunks.

"I've an idea," said Armstrong.  "It'll take
a long time to get back through the tunnel.  Why
not shift one of these poles, and put it up against
the tower?  I could climb then, and take a look
in at that upper window."

"Good man!  We must take care to get one
long enough."

They found a straight fir stem that appeared
to be of the required length, carried it to the
tower, and raised it silently until the top rested
in the ivy, just above the left-hand corner of the
window.

"Steady it while I climb," said Armstrong.
"Don't let it wobble over."

He began to swarm up.  For the first eighteen
or twenty feet it was easy work; then with every
inch upward his difficulties grew, for not only was
there less and less room between the pole and the
wall, but the pole itself showed more and more
tendency to roll sideways, in spite of Warrender's
steadying hands below.  Slowly, very slowly
Armstrong mounted, maintaining equilibrium partly
by clutching the ivy.  At last, gaining the level
of the window, he gripped one of the iron bars
that stretched across it, rested one knee on the
wide embrasure, and peeped through a narrow
crack between two of the boards.

He was transfixed with amazement.  The first
object that caught his eye was the figure of an
elderly man, bald, with thick grey moustache and
beard, seated at a table, resting his head on his
hands as he read by the light of a small paraffin
lamp the book open before him.  On one end of
the table stood a couple of plates, one holding a
half-loaf of bread, a knife, and a jug.  Upon the
walls beyond him hung animals' horns, tusks,
savage weapons, necklaces of metal and beads.  The
remainder of the room was out of the line of sight.

As Armstrong gazed, the inmate got up and
paced to and fro.  He was tall and lank; his
clothes--an ordinary lounge suit--hung loosely
upon his spare frame.  There was a worn, harassed
look in the eyes beneath a deeply furrowed brow.
He strode up and down, his large bony hands
clasped behind him; sighed, sat down again, and
began to take off his clothes.

.. _`"HE STRODE UP AND DOWN, HIS LARGE BONY HANDS CLASPED BEHIND HIM"`:

.. figure:: images/img-207.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "HE STRODE UP AND DOWN, HIS LARGE BONY HANDS CLASPED BEHIND HIM."

   "HE STRODE UP AND DOWN, HIS LARGE BONY HANDS CLASPED BEHIND HIM."

Puzzled as to the identity of this solitary,
wondering whether he, and not Gradoff, was the
head of the gang, Armstrong backed down to make
his descent.  The pole swayed as his full weight
came upon it, and he saved himself from crashing
to the ground only by desperately clinging to the
ivy, and forcing the top of the pole into a tangled
mass of the foliage.  Then he slid rapidly down,
barking his hands on the rough stem.

"Quick!" whispered Warrender.  "You made
too much row."

He ran backwards, letting down the pole;
Armstrong caught up the lower end, and they
hurried away with it, laying it in the wood among
the others.  Meanwhile they had heard sounds of
movement from the tower.  Some one had come
out.  There were low voices, footsteps coming
towards them.  Without an instant's delay they
pushed on in the direction of the river, thankful
for the darkness of the night and the overshadowing
trees.  Only when they had gained the shelter of
the thicket did they dare to pause for a moment
to consult the compass.  On again, but more
slowly, lest the rustling leaves should betray them.

At length they came to the channel.  The
island was opposite to them.  Turning southward,
they groped along the bank until they stumbled
upon the pram.  They launched it, and floated
down stream.  When they were well past the
southern end of the island they pulled round into
the broader channel, and, closely hugging the right
bank, rowed quietly up the river to their landing-place.

Only then did Warrender venture a whispered question--

"What did you see?"

"An oldish man, reading."

"Not one of those we have seen?"

"No.  Can't make it out."

They returned to camp.  It was past two o'clock.
Pratt sprang up from his chair before the tent,
and held a small paraffin lamp towards them.

"Well?" he asked, guessing from their aspect
that they brought news.

"They were working in the tower," said
Warrender.  "We heard the machine, and couldn't
risk going up from the tunnel.  But we came back
and reconnoitred the outside, and Armstrong
climbed up and peeped through a crack in the
boarding of the top room.  What did you see, Jack?"

"An old man reading by the light of a paraffin lamp."

"Another one of the gang!" exclaimed Pratt.

"I don't know.  Perhaps.  He looked haggard
and anxious."

"No wonder.  What was he like?"

"Tall and thin, with grey moustache and beard."

"A foreigner?"

"Couldn't tell.  He might well have been
English.  A queer old johnny--hook-nosed, high
bald head: might have been a 'varsity professor."

"What!" shouted Pratt.  "Bald!  Beard!
Hook nose!  Like a professor!  Great heavens--my
uncle!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`ZERO`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XVIII


.. class:: center medium

   ZERO

.. vspace:: 2

A half truth, some one has said, is the greatest
of lies: perhaps there is nothing more staggering
to the intelligence than a half discovery--a
discovery which solves one problem only to propound
another.

"My old uncle, for a certainty," said Pratt.
"He has been bald as long as I can remember
him: lost his hair in the wilds of Africa, I believe.
Years ago his man stuffed me up with the tale that
a lion clawed his tresses out by the roots.  Lucky
he didn't marry, or his wife might have plagued
him about wearing a wig, like Mother Rogers.
That's the mystery of the signal solved, then."

"Is it?" said Armstrong.  "No signal was
ever shown from the window of that top room;
that I'd swear.  The light we saw to-night was the
merest streak: came through a slit certainly not
more than a quarter of an inch wide."

"But hang it all!--there's the poor old chap a
prisoner: who else would signal for help?"

"I thought you suggested Molly Rogers,"
remarked Warrender.

"I've given that up.  Didn't Rogers say she
knows nothing about signals?  But that doesn't
matter.  The point is that those foreign
blackguards have him under lock and key while they're
committing a criminal offence on his premises.  I
shouldn't wonder if it killed him, or made him
clean potty.  He's over sixty, and solitary
confinement----"

"I say, it's very late," Armstrong interrupted.
"We've none of us had much sleep lately.  Let's
see what's to be done and then get all the rest
we can before morning.  I foresee a thick time
to-morrow."

"We must set old Crawshay moving," said
Pratt.  "No doubt he's hand in glove with the
Chief Constable."

"We talked about Crawshay before," rejoined
Armstrong.  "The affair is complicated now.
We've got your uncle's safety to consider.  You may
be sure that those ruffians won't stick at trifles,
and if any action is taken against them publicly
it's quite on the cards that they'd put a bullet into
the old man.  I'm inclined to think it's up to us."

"What do you mean?" asked Warrender.

"We know the subterranean entrance to the
tower.  Can't we get in and release him ourselves?
He'd be valuable outside as a witness."

"But, my dear chap, if the prisoner disappeared
the foreigners would know the game was up,"
said Warrender.  "They'd clear off before they
could be caught."

"Look here, old man, he's my uncle," said
Pratt earnestly.  "The poor old boy has been
cooped up there goodness knows how long.  He's
over sixty, accustomed to an active life: imagine
what it means to him.  It's just the sort of thing
to send him to a lunatic asylum for the rest of his
days.  I'd never forgive myself if I didn't make
some effort to get him out of it.  If you put it
to me, I say I don't care a hang whether the
forgers are caught or not.  The personal matter
quite outweighs any other.  If we go interviewing
magistrates and constables we'll lose precious
time: you know what officials are.  The thing is,
to rescue my old uncle without a moment's delay,
and let the rest take its chances."

Pratt's unwonted gravity had its effect upon
his companions.

"Shall we try it?" asked Warrender, turning
to Armstrong.

"I'm game," was the ready reply.  "It's risky: no
good blinking that.  We are three to six or seven,
if we include Rush; and there's not the least doubt
they're armed.  Fellows like that always carry
automatics.  We've got cudgels!  We can't fight
'em; our only chance is to get in when there are
few of them about."

"That's during the morning," said Warrender.
"You remember that Gradoff has twice gone off
in the car, and that morning we went up all the
men were at the house."

"Except Rush," added Armstrong, "and that
ugly fellow we weren't introduced to."

"Well, then, I tell you what," said Pratt.
"I'll go into the village in the morning and find
out whether the car has left as usual.  We want
some eggs, and some spirit for the stove.  I'll get
that at Blevins's, and see if I can pump a little
information out of him or his assistant.  If Gradoff
and the chauffeur are away the odds against us
will be reduced, and with luck we might get into
the tower in their absence.  What do you say?"

"There seems nothing better," said Warrender.
"Let us turn in and get four or five hours' sleep."

Soon after breakfast next morning Pratt went
off alone in the dinghy.

"By the way," Warrender said as he was
pulling away, "bring an ounce of pepper, and a
large tin of sardines.  We can't bother about cooking
to-day, and sardines want a little condiment."

"A packet of mustard, too," called Armstrong.
"There's none for to-morrow's bacon."

"Righto," shouted Pratt.  "I shan't be long."

Arrived at the village, he made his purchases
at the little provision shop, thrust them into his
pocket, and went on to the general dealer's for a
can of spirit.  As he approached, he heard a
high-pitched, angry voice from the depths of the yard
at the side of the shop.

"You go at vunce, at vunce, I say.  Ve hire
your car; vat is ze goot?  Always it break down,
one, two, tree times.  It is too much."

"Ay, and you owe me too much already," replied
Blevins gruffly.

Pratt halted, straining his ears towards the
altercation.

"You pay up: that's what I say," Blevins went
on.  "You've had my car a week or more, and
over-drive, that's what you do.  And not a penny
piece have you paid."

"But zat is all right," expostulated the foreigner.
"Mr. Gradoff he pay at end of ze month.  He say
so; vell, you vait all right.  You have--vat you
call it?--a bike; it is ten mile, but vat is zat?
You go quick."

.. _`"'BUT ZAT IS ALL RIGHT'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-215.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "'BUT ZAT IS ALL RIGHT.'"

   "'BUT ZAT IS ALL RIGHT.'"


"And you think I'm going to ride twenty mile
for a commutator.  Not me.  What do you want
the car for, anyway?  Driving in and out nigh
every day, scorching along fit to bust up any
machine.  What's your game?  Do 'ee take me
for a fool?  You're up to some hanky-panky while
your master's away.  Think I didn't know that
all along?  Nice goings on!  A pretty tale the
village 'll have to tell him when he gets back!
Spending his money like I don't know what.
Spending, says I; running up bills, that's what it
is.  You pay up, and you shall have a commutator.
I don't need to ride no bikes to fetch it:
I've got it on the spot; only I'll see your money
first."

The men had begun to walk up the yard.  Pratt
slipped into the shop.  Evidently the car would
not be used to-day, he thought, if Blevins remained
obdurate.  Evidently, also, Blevins was suspicious
of the doings at the Red House, though it was
clear that he had no well-defined idea of what
those doings were, or any knowledge of Mr. Pratt's
whereabouts.  He went past the shop, still bickering
with the Italian.  Pratt had a free field.

His former acquaintance, the youthful assistant,
came forward to attend to him.

"Good-morning," said Pratt, genially.  "It
seems quite an age since I saw you.  I've often
thought of that pleasant little conversation we had.
But I'm in rather a hurry to-day.  I want some
methylated spirit: that's what you call it, isn't
it?--the stuff that burns with a blue flame.  Rummy
how often blue comes into business affairs, don't
you think?  Last time I was here I wanted blue
tacks, I remember.  By the way, I suppose your
friend, the gardener at the Red House, hasn't
bought any more tacks?"

"No friend o' mine," growled the youth.

"Indeed!  It's a pity not to be friends.  Friendship
oils the machinery of life, don't you know.
Still, I am sure it's not your fault.  Why doesn't
he reciprocate the amiable sentiments you cherish
towards him?"

The youth gave Pratt a puzzled stare.  "I
don't know nothing about that," he said slowly.
"All I do know is, I hate furriners, I do so.  Fair
cruel they be.  Why, the feller comed in here not
a hour ago and wanted six foot of iron chain--to
chain up a dog.  'Twas cruelty to animals, and
so I told 'un."

"Perhaps the dog feels the heat and gets snappy."

"But the thickness of it!  Look 'ee here, sir;
here's the chain I cut.  'Tis thick enough to hold
a mad bull.  Do 'ee call that a chain for a dog?  He
wouldn't have a little small chain, as was proper."

"Well, after all, you haven't seen the dog.  It
may be a whopper of a brute.  Give him the
benefit of the doubt.  You'll feel better now you've
told me."

He paid for the can of spirit and left the shop.
Blevins and the chauffeur were a little way up
the road, still quarrelling.  Forgetting the eggs
that were part of his commission, Pratt hastened
back to the ferry, and found that his friends had
just arrived in the motor-boat.

"We saw Rush pulling down stream," said
Warrender, "and hurried up to meet you and
save time.  He's one less.  Any news of the car?"

"It appears to have broken down," replied
Pratt, going on to relate what he had heard.
"Pity Gradoff won't be away.  But the Italian
is still squabbling with Blevins, and if we look
sharp we may get into the tower before he returns
to the house.  That will make them two short."

He had placed on the deck the can of spirit and
the tin of sardines while he was speaking, then
tied the dinghy astern and jumped aboard.

"Rush wasn't going to the island?" he asked.

"We watched him row past it," said Warrender.
"He's probably off to his hut.  Let's hope that
the other fellows are at the house and not at the
tower."

"It's 'over the top' now," remarked Armstrong,
as the boat sidled away from the landing-stage.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE PRISONER`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XIX


.. class:: center medium

   THE PRISONER

.. vspace:: 2

Pratt was the only one of the three who had the
curiosity to look at his watch when they descended
into the cellar of the ruined cottage.  It was
twelve minutes past ten.

They had tied up the motor-boat at its moorings
below the camp, and after a careful look-out in all
directions, had crossed to No Man's Island by
Mr. Crawshay's pram.  For weapons Pratt and
Armstrong each carried a short thick cudgel; Warrender
at the last moment caught up his spanner, remarking
that he might need a knuckle-duster.

The flat stone was revolved.  They sprang
lightly into the cavity below.

"Shall we leave it open in case we have to come
back in a hurry?" asked Warrender in a whisper.

"Better close it," said Armstrong.  "If Rush
or the other fellow turns up and finds it open we
may be fairly trapped."

Having made all secure they stood for a few
moments listening.  There was no sound.

"Now," said Warrender, moving to the front
with his electric torch.  "You're lucky, Pratt;
you're the only one of us who can walk upright."

"'Were I so tall to reach the pole,'" Pratt
quoted.

"Shut up!" said Armstrong, in a murmur.
"Every sound carries.  You can recite your little
piece when we're through with it."

Slowly, quietly, in pitch darkness, they groped
their way.  Warrender thought it prudent not to
switch on his light.  At the dry well they halted
to listen once more.  On again, until they reached
the vaulted chamber at the end.  From overhead
came the dull regular thud of the working machine.
This was a disappointment.  They wondered how
many men were above.  Did the trap here give
entrance to a cellar as in the cottage?  Was the
printing done in such a cellar, or on a higher floor?
They could not tell.  The least movement of the
flagstone might be noticed; they might be
overwhelmed before they could emerge; but it was no
time to weigh risks.

Armstrong went forward, and by a momentary
flash from Warrender's torch saw the positions of
the hand-grips.  With infinite care he moved them
round, and let the flagstone drop for a fraction of
an inch.  The sound from the machine was scarcely
louder; only a subdued light shone through the
crack.  He lowered the stone noiselessly a little
more; again a little more.  The thuds continued;
there was no other sound.  No longer hesitating,
Armstrong turned the stone over until it stood
upright and peered over the edge of the cavity.
He saw a large, dimly lit chamber, evidently
underground, one side of which was filled with
packing cases, crates and boxes.  On the other
side was a wooden staircase with a short return,
giving access to the room from which came, more
distinctly now, the thud of the printing press.  It
was only through the opening at the head of the
staircase that light, apparently from a lamp,
penetrated into the chamber.

Armstrong scrambled up; Warrender was
following him, when the thuds suddenly ceased.
The boys held their breath.  Had they been heard
in spite of their care?  There was no movement
above.  Warrender signed to Pratt to clamber up.
Whether from excitement, or because he was
shorter than the others, Pratt dropped his stick,
which fell with a crack upon the floor.  A voice
from above called out two or three words which
none of the boys understood.  They had the
rising inflection of a question; the last seemed to
be a name.  With quick wit Pratt uttered a
low-toned grunt as if in answer.  Armstrong flung a
glance at his companions--a look in which they
read resolution and a claim for their support.
Then he walked boldly up the stairs.

On turning the corner he saw the well-remembered
figure of Jensen the Swede in his
shirt-sleeves, bending over, examining the platen
of a small hand printing press.  No daylight
penetrated into the room, which was illumined by
a powerful lamp hanging from the ceiling.  Jensen's
back was towards the staircase.  He did not at
once look up; Pratt's grunt had apparently
satisfied him; but he growled a few words in a
tongue unknown to the boys, as if he was finding
fault with the machine.  Receiving no answer,
he glanced up.  At the sight of Armstrong he
remained for an instant in his bent position,
motionless, as though turned to stone.  Then he
dashed towards the farther wall, where his coat
hung from a nail.

.. _`"HE REMAINED FOR AN INSTANT IN HIS BENT POSITION, MOTIONLESS"`:

.. figure:: images/img-222.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "HE REMAINED FOR AN INSTANT IN HIS BENT POSITION, MOTIONLESS."

   "HE REMAINED FOR AN INSTANT IN HIS BENT POSITION, MOTIONLESS."

His momentary hesitation was his undoing.
Armstrong sprang after him.  Before the man
could withdraw his hand from the coat pocket
Armstrong struck down his left arm, raised
instinctively to ward off a blow, with a smart stroke
from his cudgel, following it up with a smashing
left-hander between the eyes, which drove his
head against the wall.  While he still staggered,
Armstrong seized him about the middle and flung
him to the floor, wrenching from his hand the
automatic pistol he had taken from his pocket.

"Hold his legs," cried Armstrong to Warrender,
who had joined him.  "Pratt, bring up some
rope; there's plenty on the packing cases below."

The Swede heaved and writhed, but the firm hands
of Armstrong and Warrender held him to the floor
until Pratt had neatly bound his arms and legs.
He filled the air with curses while the pinioning
was a-doing.  Warrender caught up some sheets
from the pile of paper that had already been
printed, and twisting them into a wad, stuffed it
between the man's teeth.  Laid helpless against
the wall, the Swede concentrated all the bitterness
of his rage and resentment in his eyes, which
followed every movement of his captors.

Armstrong had already shot the stout bolt that
defended the heavy oaken door on the inside.
Having disposed of their victim, they threw a
hasty glance at the small hand press, the piles of
paper, printed and unprinted; in their eagerness
to achieve their purpose they did not stay to make
a thorough examination.

"Jack, will you close the trap-door below and
remain on guard here?" said Warrender.  "Take
this fellow's pistol.  You can spy out through a
chink in the boarding, and if you see any of the
others coming, sing out."

"Righto," said Armstrong.

Pratt was already through the low doorway in
the north-east corner of the room.  Warrender
followed him, and found himself at the foot of a dark
stone staircase, which wound so rapidly that Pratt
was even now out of sight.  The stairs were much
worn in the middle, and in their haste to ascend
the boys were glad to avail themselves of the rope
that ran along the inner wall, supported by rusty
iron stanchions.

When they had mounted a score of steps by the
light of Warrender's torch, they came to an open
doorway giving access to a low room lined with
bookcases, except on the eastern wall, where a
window, closely boarded up, looked towards the
Red House.  A desk stood in the centre of the
floor; there was no other furniture, no occupant,
only an array of small tin cases along one of the
walls.  Going higher, they presently halted before
a closed door, the top of which was only a few feet
below the massive timbers of the roof.  Pratt
turned the large iron ring; the door did not yield.
He rapped smartly on the oak: there was no reply.
Stooping, he peeped through the enormous keyhole.
The interior of the room was dark.  Warrender
held the torch to the hole.

"The door's four or five inches thick," said
Pratt.  "No wonder he can't hear--if this is the
room.  Bang with your spanner."

Warrender smote the door vigorously, Pratt
listening at the keyhole.  There was no reply, but
Pratt declared that he heard a slight movement,
and putting his mouth to the keyhole he cried--

"Can you hear?  We are friends."

Still there was no voice in answer.  The only
sound was a clanking of metal.

"Is your uncle deaf?" asked Warrender.

"He wasn't ten years ago.  You try, Phil;
your voice may carry better than mine."

"Are you Mr. Ambrose Pratt?" Warrender
shouted, then turned his ear to the hole.

"Yes.  Who are you?"

The words were spoken in tones so low and
hollow that Warrender could scarcely distinguish
them.

"Friends," he replied.  "Your nephew Percy.
Come to the door."

"What did you say?"

"Come--to--the--door!" Warrender bawled,
spacing out the words.

"Why do you mock me?  You know I cannot."

Again came the clanking of metal.

"He must be deaf," said Pratt.

"We have come to help you," cried Warrender,
slowly and distinctly.  "Can you open the door?"

"To help me!"  The clanking was louder,
more prolonged.  "Are the villains gone?  Who
are you?"

"This is rotten," said Warrender to Pratt.
"Shall I never make him understand?  Please be
still and listen," he called.  "We are friends.
We have come to let you out.  Can you help us?"

"No.  The door is locked.  That man Gradoff
has the key, and I am chained."

"Good heavens!" ejaculated Pratt.  "Can we
burst in the door?"

Standing on the narrow top step of the staircase,
with winding stairs behind them, they were unable
to bring any momentum to bear, and the pressure
of their shoulders did not cause the heavy timber
to yield a fraction of an inch.  Warrender tried to
force first the head of his spanner, then the narrower
end of the handle between the door and the
side-post.  He failed.

"Get Jensen's pistol and blow it in," suggested
Pratt.

Warrender hurried down the stairs.  Returning
with the pistol, he called through the keyhole--

"We will try to blow the lock in.  Keep away
from the line of fire."

"Fire away.  I am at the side of the room,"
said the prisoner.

Warrender placed the muzzle in the keyhole and
fired.  There was the crack of shattered metal,
but still the door did not yield.  He fired a second
time and pushed.

"It is giving.  Shove!" he said.

Pratt turned his back to the door, and thrusting
his feet as firmly as he could against the curving
wall, he drove backwards with all his force.  The
fragments of the broken lock clattered upon the
floor within, and the door swinging open suddenly,
precipitated Pratt headlong into the room.

Warrender flashed his torch upon the scene.
Against the left, the eastern wall, sitting on a
roughly contrived bunk supported between two
massive oaken beams that stretched from floor to
roof, was the tall lank figure that Armstrong had
described.  He was chained by the leg to one of
the beams, the chain forming a loop around it, the
last link being riveted to one in the longer portion.

Ambrose Pratt gazed in speechless surprise at
the two schoolboys.

"Uncle!" exclaimed Pratt, going forward with
outstretched hand.

Mr. Pratt looked with an expression of utter
bewilderment and incredulity.

"Don't you remember me?  I'm your nephew
Percy," said the boy.

"My nephew!" murmured Mr. Pratt.

"Let us postpone explanations," said Warrender.
"We have to get away.  Hold the chain, Percy.
I'll smash it with the spanner."

But the chain, which the general dealer's assistant
had described as strong enough to hold a mad bull,
resisted all the vigorous blows Warrender rained
upon it.

"Run downstairs, Pratt," he said, "and see if
there's a hammer and chisel below--or any tool
about the printing press."

During Pratt's absence he repeated his efforts
with the spanner, but made no impression on the
tough steel.  Pratt returned with a long steel rod
which he had found lying near the press, and
inserting this in one of the links, they tried to
burst it.

"No good!" declared Warrender.  "Nothing
but a chisel and hammer will do it.  I've both in
my tool box in the motor-boat.  We must have
them.  It's the only chance.  You had better go
for them, Pratt.  Jack and I could tackle the
foreigners if they came up."

"All right," said Pratt.  "What's the chisel like?"

"What's it like?" exclaimed Warrender.  "Like
a chisel!  Hang it!  We can't risk a mistake.
I'll go myself.  You stay with your uncle.  Jack
will keep guard below, with the pistol.  The door's
strong, and we may be able to keep the enemy out
until I have time to get back, suppose they come.
I'll be as quick as I can: afraid I can't do it under
half an hour.  Good luck!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE PACE QUICKENS`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XX


.. class:: center medium

   THE PACE QUICKENS

.. vspace:: 2

"So you are my nephew Percy," said Mr. Pratt
when Warrender had gone.  "Light the lamp and
let me look at you.  I don't recognise you.  When
was our last meeting?"

"About ten years ago," replied Pratt, surprised
at his uncle's calm demeanour.  "You tanned me
for picking one of your peaches."

"Did I?"  Mr. Pratt smiled.  "You were
always a mischievous young ruffian.  But how do
you come here?  Do you bear an olive branch
from that cantankerous father of yours?"

"I came through the tunnel," Pratt began,
ignoring the aspersion upon his father.  Mr. Pratt
interrupted him.

"What tunnel?"

"The tunnel between No Man's Island and this
tower.  Didn't you know of it?"

"I never heard of it before.  Who told you
about it?"

"We discovered it by accident.  My chums and
I came for a boating holiday, and camped on the
island.  We have had----"

"You saw my signals?" his uncle interposed.

"Yes, and----"

"And the police are informed?  These villains
will be arrested?"

"Well, as a matter of fact, Uncle," said Pratt,
and was again interrupted.

"You did not?  Then I am afraid you and your
companions have tumbled into a hornets' nest,
young man.  As we are to have apparently a few
minutes' leisure, I think you had better put me
wise, as our American friends say, about the
essential facts of the situation.  How many do
you muster?"

Pratt, in the exalted mood of a rescuer, and
himself bursting with questions, was a little dashed
by his uncle's cool matter-of-fact manner.

"There are three of us," he said.  "We got in
through the tunnel, and found one man below at
the printing press."

"A printing press!  Indeed!  What literature
are my guardians disseminating?"

"Forged notes."

"Forgers!" ejaculated Mr. Pratt, for the first
time showing signs of agitation.  "Things are
worse than I dreamed.  You are sure of what you say?"

"Absolutely.  We found the watermarked paper."

"The scoundrels!  You had better get away.
If these fellows are an international gang of forgers
they will have no scruples.  The lives of you and
your companions are not worth a rap.  Leave me.
Get away while there is time.  Inform the police
and leave matters in their hands."

"It's too late for that," said Pratt.  "We have
trussed up the man downstairs.  Our only idea
was to rescue you.  If we left you now the others
would find Jensen and know that the game is up.
They might shoot you.  We must get you away
now at all costs."

"It is utter folly.  Hare-brained adventuring!
I fear you are right; it is too late.  I must join
forces with you when this chain is broken.  I
blame myself that my signals have let you young
fellows into this terrible trap."

"We had suspicions before we saw them--in
fact, ever since we heard about your staff of foreign
servants."

"Yes, yes.  I have been frightfully deluded.
No doubt it is the talk of the village.  I engaged
my cook and gardener through an advertisement.
The cook introduced that scoundrel Gradoff as an
unfortunate Russian nobleman driven from his
country.  The plausible wretch engaged the others.
They seemed a respectable, hard-working set of
men.  I was making hurried arrangements for a
trip to North Africa via Paris.  Gradoff gave me
every assistance.  I was on the point of starting.
They kidnapped me and shut me up here.  I
thought their sole motive was robbery.  Gradoff
tried to get me to sign cheques for large amounts.
I flatly refused, of course.  They adopted starvation
tactics, threatened to murder me; but I have
looked death in the face too often to purchase life
at such a price.  They dropped these efforts some
time ago, but I suspected that Gradoff was forging
my name, and thought he would liberate me as
soon as he had fleeced me bare."

"And how did you signal, with the windows
boarded up?" asked Pratt.

"With handfuls of flock from my mattress dipped
in paraffin, stuck on a lath from my bed and
poked up the chimney.  Gradoff discovered me
last night.  I was in the chimney.  He had gone
to the roof, saw the flame emerge, and snatched
the lath from my hands.  He whipped out his
pistol and threatened to shoot me.  I laughed
at him; asked him whether he wished to add
murder to forgery; he gave me a curious stare
at that.  I reminded him that we still retain
capital punishment.  He cursed me and left.  This
morning he brought the chain.  No doubt he
would have killed me if there had been
anything to gain by my death; but he must have
supposed that the signals had not been seen; they
had had no apparent result.  You say you had
suspicions before you saw the signals.  Why?--apart
from the usual British distrust of foreigners."

Pratt was beginning to recount the series of
incidents that had occurred since the arrival on
No Man's Island when there came a hail from below.
He went to the top of the stairs.

"What is it, Armstrong?"

"Can you come down for a moment?"

Pratt ran downstairs.

"I didn't want to alarm your uncle," said
Armstrong, "but just now, looking through a
chink in the boards, I saw four men coming towards
the tower.  What are we to do?"

Pratt went to the boarded window and looked out.

"Gradoff and the chauffeur," he said.  "The
other two I haven't seen before.  We might have
tackled two; let 'em in and bagged them.  But
four!--probably armed, like Jensen.  It's no go."

"We can only lie low, then, and play for
time.  The door's a stout piece of timber, and it's
not so easy to blow off a bolt as to blow in a lock."

"Don't speak," whispered Pratt, "they're just here."

The handle of the door was turned.  Then came
a sharp knock.  A pause of a few seconds; then a
more peremptory knock and Gradoff's voice.

"Jensen!"

The Swede prostrate against the wall wriggled
and emitted a low gurgling noise through his gag.
The boys glanced at him; he was unable to release
his limbs; the sound could not have been heard
through the thick door.

A third time Gradoff knocked.  He rattled the
door-handle, repeated his call, with the addition
of sundry violent expletives.  The boys remained
tensely silent.

The voices without subsided.  Conversation was
still carried on, but in lower tones.

"Probably they think he is downstairs getting
paper," whispered Pratt.  "There's nothing
alarming at present."

"But they'll smell a rat if he doesn't soon answer.
What then?"

"They may think he has fallen ill or something."

"And then?"

"Well, I can't answer for the intelligence of
Gradoff and company, but if I were in his shoes I
should either break in the door or send some one
round by the tunnel.  You see, he can't have the
ghost of an idea what has happened.  And if his
game were discovered, he wouldn't expect to find
the place merely closed against him."

"I dare say you're right.  But don't you think
you had better go through the tunnel and hurry
Phil up?  We should be in a pretty tight place if
Gradoff did send a man or two round, and we found,
when we had released your uncle, that the exit
at the other end was blocked."

"I don't care about leaving you alone.  Suppose
they broke in while I was away?"

"Two wouldn't be much better than one against
four armed ruffians.  And they'd guess that you
and Phil had gone to fetch the police, and I fancy
they'd be too anxious to save their skins to bother
much about me.  At any rate, I'll risk it.  I think
you had better go.  In fact, when you meet Phil,
why not go and tell Mr. Crawshay how things
stand?  Phil and I will get your uncle away if it's
possible, and though I don't suppose Crawshay
could do anything to secure the gang--there's
apparently only one policeman--he might 'phone
or wire the authorities, and set every one on the
qui vive for miles around."

"All right.  If I'm going, better go at once,
before any one has time to go round by the cottage.
I'll consult Phil about your suggestion, and go to
Crawshay if he agrees.  I wish I had the torch.
I shall have to grope my way along the tunnel, but
I'll be as quick as I can."

He ran noiselessly down the stairs.  The flagstone
was upright, as it had been left.  He jumped
into the cavity, crossed the store-room, entered the
tunnel on the farther side, and hurried along as
rapidly as the darkness allowed.  Now and again
he stopped to strike a match and to listen for
Warrender's footsteps, but he reached the end
without having seen or heard anything of his friend.

By the light of a match he saw that the flagstone
was slightly depressed.  Then he caught sight of
Warrender's electric torch lying on the ground,
and was seized with a vague uneasiness.  He
picked up the torch.  Revolving the stone, he
heard something slide with a metallic rattle along
its surface, and felt a smart blow on one of his feet.
He flashed the torch, and saw a hammer and a
chisel.  Still more uneasy, he clambered up into
the cellar, and without lowering the flagstone,
climbed on to the staircase.

"You there, Phil?" he called up.

There was no answer.  The door at the top was
open.  He rushed up, ran through the kitchen
and the corridor to the front of the cottage, and
looked anxiously around.  No one was in view.

"What on earth is he doing?" he thought.

It was clear that Warrender had fetched the
tools from the motor-boat and returned to the
cellar.  Why then had he left them there?  Where
had he gone?  What could have interrupted him?

Pratt felt himself on the horns of a painful
dilemma.  He had now the instruments of his
uncle's deliverance; one impulse urged him to
hurry with them back to the tower.  On the other
hand, Warrender's disappearance argued that
something untoward had happened, and he was
loth to leave the spot without making an attempt
to find him.  For a few moments he stood in the
doorway, weighing the one course against the
other.  A search for Warrender might prove
fruitless, and in any case would take time.
Meanwhile affairs at the tower might be developing in a
way that would nullify the prime motive that had
actuated them all--the release of his uncle.  It
seemed that this had a paramount claim upon him,
and he turned, reluctantly, to retrace his steps to
the cellar.

As he passed the foot of the staircase to the upper
floor, it occurred to him that from the windows
there, giving a wider outlook over the surroundings
of the cottage, he might see Warrender approaching:
perhaps, indeed, as the result of an after-thought,
he had made a second visit to the motor-boat.
Pratt ran upstairs, and going from room to
room, threw a searching glance upon the prospect.
Neither on the eastern side nor on the western
was there anything to attract his attention.  But
looking out of the window of the room facing south,
he noticed that the foliage of the thicket beyond
the weedy path was violently disturbed.  Some one
was moving in it, towards the ruins.  He watched
eagerly: surely it was Warrender returning.
Presently two legs came into view; but they were
not Warrender's.  They were encased in rusty
brown leggings.  In another moment the figure
of Rush emerged from the thicket upon the path,
and immediately behind him was a second form,
that of a tall and heavily built man with a broad
flattish face.  When free from the thicket they
quickened their pace.

Pratt hesitated no longer.  The men were
evidently making for the ruins: perhaps they
intended to proceed along the tunnel.  It was
imperative that he should anticipate them.  He
hastened downstairs, and had just reached the
cellar when he heard clumping footsteps overhead.
Leaping into the cavity, he swung the stone over,
turned the hand-grips, and by the light of the
torch bolted along the tunnel.  After running
about twenty yards he switched off the light and
stopped.  Voices came from behind him; then
he heard two heavy thuds in succession; the men
had jumped into the tunnel.  The flagstone banged
as it was swung carelessly into place; the men were
coming after him.  Without more delay he set
forward with all speed, guiding himself by touching
the walls with his outstretched hands.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`TRAPPED`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXI


.. class:: center medium

   TRAPPED

.. vspace:: 2

Meanwhile, what had happened to Warrender?

On entering the cottage by way of the tunnel
and the cellar, he went upstairs to make a careful
survey of the surroundings, saw no sign of the
enemy, and hurried across the island to the pram,
in which he crossed the river unobserved.  In less
than ten minutes he was back at the cottage with
the hammer and chisel taken from his motor-boat.
As he was on the point of re-opening the trap, he
found that the electric torch showed a much feebler
light than before, and if it gave out before
Mr. Pratt was brought away, the flight through the
tunnel might be dangerously delayed.  It seemed
worth while to pay another rapid visit to the camp
for the purpose of getting a small hand lamp or a
couple of candles.  Laying the hammer and chisel
under the staircase, he went up again, once more
crossed the island, found one candle in the
motorboat, and returned without delay.

It happened, however, that as he left the cottage
on this second journey, Rush and his big flat-faced
companion were approaching it from the south.
Unseen themselves, they caught sight of
Warrender as he emerged from the entrance, watched
him until he had disappeared into the thicket,
waited a few minutes, then entered the cottage
and descended to the cellar.  They had no light,
and Warrender had taken the precaution of
carefully replacing the flagstone; but in his haste he
had omitted to close the upright slab beneath the
lowest step, leaving open the access to the
handgrips.  Rush was suspicious.  The gap might have
been left open, of course, by one of the confederates;
on the other hand, it was possible that the secret
passage had been discovered by the boy he had
seen leaving the cottage.  The boy might return,
and Rush allowed his curiosity to delay the visit
to the tower on which he had been summoned.
It was an error of judgment that had important
consequences.

He posted himself with his companion in a
remote corner of the cellar, and waited.

Some ten minutes later, Warrender came down
the steps.  He flashed his torch to light the
opening, retrieved the hammer and chisel, and laid
them down on the flagstone while he inserted his
arm in the gap to turn the hand-grips.  All the
time his back was towards the men lurking within
twenty feet of him.  As he sprawled over the
stone, there was a sudden noise behind him.
Hastily withdrawing his hand, he half rose, but
too late.  Seized by powerful hands and taken
at a disadvantage, he was helpless.  His torch fell
into the gap, and in the darkness he was dragged
up the stairs between his captors.

"Cotched 'en!" chuckled Rush, as they lugged
him through the hall.  "What'll we do with 'en,
Sibelius?"

"Kill!" said the Finn.  "Throw in river!"

"No, no, that won't do!" said Rush.  "He
bain't alone.  There's the other young devils.
It bain't safe.  I think of my neck.  No; we'll
take 'en down to the hut and tie 'en up; he'll be
out of harm's way there, and in a few hours it
won't matter."

Like most Englishmen in speaking to a foreigner,
he shouted, and the Finn warned him to speak
more quietly: the prisoner would hear all he said.

"What do it matter?" laughed Rush.  "Let
'en hear--by the time his friends find 'en we'll be
far away.  Curious 'tis, that we've cotched 'en the
very last day.  If it'd a been yesterday, we might
have *had* to kill 'en.  We'll stuff up his mouth,
though; t'others may be about."

Pulling Warrender's handkerchief from his
pocket, he rolled it up, and thrust it between the
lad's teeth.  Warrender ruefully reflected that
just in such a way had Jensen been gagged that
morning.  Then the men hauled him through the
thicket towards the point of the island where Rush
moored his boat.

"I say, Sibelius," remarked Rush, when they
were half-way there, "I reckon we'd better not
take 'en to the hut after all.  'Twill take time, and
we don't know where his mates be.  Better go and
tell the boss all about it; he'd be fair mad if
anything spoilt his game the last moment."

"What we do, then?" asked the Finn.

"We'll truss 'en up: plenty of rope in the boat;
and put 'en in among the bushes.  He'll be snug
enough there."

He chuckled.  Dismayed at the prospect opened
before him, Warrender, who had hitherto offered
no resistance, made a sudden dive towards the
ground, at the same time throwing out his leg in
an attempt to trip the bulkier of his captors.  But
though he succeeded in freeing one arm, and
causing the Finn to stumble, he had no time to
wrench himself from Rush's grip before the other
man had recovered his balance and seized him in
a clutch of iron.

"Best come quiet!" growled Rush, "or there's
no saying what we might do to you.  I've got a
tender heart," he chuckled, "but my mate 'ud
as soon kill a man as a rat."

Arrived at the boat, they threw him into the
bottom, and the Finn held him down while Rush
swiftly roped his arms and legs together.  Then
they carried him a few yards into the thicket, and
laid him down in a spot where he was completely
hidden from any one who might pass within arm's
length of him.

.. _`"RUSH SWIFTLY ROPED HIS ARMS AND LEGS TOGETHER"`:

.. figure:: images/img-248.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "RUSH SWIFTLY ROPED HIS ARMS AND LEGS TOGETHER."

   "RUSH SWIFTLY ROPED HIS ARMS AND LEGS TOGETHER."

"Now we'll traipse through to the tower,"
said Rush.  "He'll take a deal of finding, I'm
thinking!"

The men struck away towards the ruins, satisfied
that their victim could not escape, and that his
hiding-place was not likely to be discovered until
discovery mattered nothing.  They had not
noticed, however, that while the trussing was in
progress, Warrender's cap had fallen off, and
now lay between two of the thwarts of the boat.


Pratt, hurrying along the tunnel with the
hammer and chisel, and knowing that he was
pursued, felt that he had done rightly in not
making a prolonged search for Warrender.  His
sole pre-occupation now was the necessity of
outstripping his pursuers by an interval sufficient to
allow him time to block up their ingress to the
tower.  If Armstrong was still unmolested, and
Mr. Pratt could be set free, the three were capable
of dealing with the two men in the tunnel, and
might make good their escape before Gradoff and
his confederates at the tower door had any inkling
of the true situation.

He soon understood that he was gaining on the
men behind; but he presently became aware that,
not far ahead of him, daylight seemed to have
percolated into the tunnel.  For a moment he was
nonplussed until he remembered the dry well.  It
then occurred to him in a flash that some one must
have removed the boards that had lain across the
top of the well, and he was seized with a misgiving.
Had Gradoff, unable to obtain admittance to the
tower, bethought himself of this opening into the
tunnel from above, and lowered one or more of his
men, who had already made their way to the end,
and perhaps overpowered Armstrong?

Taking advantage of the faint illumination of
the tunnel, he quickened his pace.  In a moment
or two he saw to his consternation a man swing
down the well, and on reaching the ground, begin
to release himself from the rope that was looped
under his arms.  It was not a time for hesitation.
Pratt dashed forward, flung himself against the
man before he was free from the rope, and drove
him doubled up against the wall.  The man
yelled; from the top of the well forty feet above
them came excited shouts; and out of the tunnel
behind sounded hoarse reverberating cries from
the pursuers, who must have seen what had
happened.  Pratt plunged into the tunnel beyond,
and, sprinting along with reckless haste, arrived
in a few minutes breathless at the end, where the
flagstone was still raised as he had left it.

He sprang up, slammed down the flagstone
behind him, and let out a lusty cry for Armstrong
to join him.

"They're after me--at least three of them!"
he exclaimed, as Armstrong came leaping down
the stairs.  "Help me to lug these boxes on to
the flagstone."

The crates and boxes ranged along the wall
were empty, and their weight alone would not have
sufficed to resist the pressure of determined men
below.  But the roof was low-pitched, and the
boys saw that by piling box upon box they could
create an obstruction which would defy all efforts
to remove it.  With feverish haste they dragged
the boxes across the floor, and had already placed
them one upon another when they heard footsteps
beneath, and felt a movement of the flagstone.

"Another box will do it," said Armstrong.
"You must heave it up while I stand on the stone."

He placed himself on the half of the stone that
moved upwards as it revolved, and bore down with
all his weight.  Pratt pulled over a fourth box,
and, standing on the projecting edge of that which
formed the base of the pile, managed with some
difficulty to shove it on to the top, where a space
of no more than two or three inches separated it
from the roof.

"Good man!" said Armstrong, stepping off the stone.

The pressure below raised it perhaps three inches,
then it stuck.

"We'll put another pile on each side, to make all
secure," said Armstrong.  "Then I think we
needn't worry."

With less haste they erected the buttress piles,
listening grimly to the hoarse curses of Rush, and
shriller cries from a foreigner by whose voice they
recognised the Italian chauffeur.  In a few minutes
their work was done.  Short of an explosion,
nothing could dislodge the jam of boxes between
the flagstone and the roof.

Panting from the strain of their exertions, they
went up into the tower.

"Where's Phil?" asked Armstrong.

"I don't know," replied Pratt, going on to
relate rapidly his discovery at the end of the
tunnel.

"They've got him, I expect," said Armstrong.
"Though I can't make out how they came to
leave this hammer and chisel."

"What has happened here?" asked Pratt.

"Nothing.  Gradoff and the others waited
outside for a bit, talking quietly.  I couldn't
understand what they said.  Then Gradoff sent the
chauffeur towards the house, and by and by went
off himself in the direction of the river, leaving the
two strangers behind.  Evidently he had sent the
chauffeur for a rope.  Perhaps he thought Jensen
had drunk himself silly, and decided to let a man
down the well--a much shorter way than going
across to the island and entering by the tunnel.
The fat's in the fire now.  If we release your uncle
we can't get him away."

"No," replied Pratt, looking through the chink
in the boards.  "Here they come: Gradoff, Rod,
the Pole, the whole gang except the fellows below.
It strikes me we are squarely trapped."

Looking towards the prisoner on the floor,
Armstrong fancied he caught a malignant gleam
in the man's eyes.

"On the whole," he said quietly, "I'm inclined
to agree with you."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A PARLEY`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXII


.. class:: center medium

   A PARLEY

.. vspace:: 2

"You're more hefty with tools than I am,"
said Pratt to Armstrong.  "So if you'll run
upstairs and smash that chain off my uncle, I'll keep
an eye on what's happening outside."

"Right," replied Armstrong.  "The hammer
strikes me as a bit light for the job, but one can
only try.  Yell if you want me."

Taking the hammer and chisel, he leapt up the
winding staircase to the topmost room.  Mr. Pratt
was thoughtfully drawing his fingers through his
beard.

"So you are the third member of the trio,"
he said.

"Yes, I'm Armstrong.  If you'll kindly stretch
the chain tight over the edge of the bed, I'll do my
best to break a link.  I'm afraid I shall jar you,
but----"

"Don't consider that.  Make your break as near
my leg as you can."

"I'll break the loop.  Are you ready, sir?"

"Quite."

For perhaps two minutes the room echoed and
re-echoed with the metallic din of hammering.
The chisel was of finely tempered steel, and
Armstrong compensated the lightness of the hammer
by the vigour of his blows.  A link snapped, the
chain clanked upon the floor, and the prisoner stood
up, free.

"Very neatly done," said he.  "And now I will
go below and join you and your companions in a
council of war."

"There are only two of us now, sir," said
Armstrong.  "Warrender didn't come back."

As they went downstairs he related succinctly
the events of the last three-quarters of an hour.
Mr. Pratt made no comment.  Entering first the
room at the bottom, he threw a glance on the
printing press, the piles of paper, and the Swede
glowering on the floor; then he turned to his
nephew.

"Well, Percy, what is going on?" he asked.

"Nothing, Uncle.  I haven't seen any of the
men.  D'you think they see the game is up, and
have bolted?"

"I think not, judging by what your friend has
just told me.  It appears that they have captured
the other man--Warrender, I think you called
him--and they know that you two are here.  It
seems improbable that they will decamp already.
They outnumber you hopelessly, and it is more
than likely that there is a large number of forged
notes in the tower which they will secure if they can."

"Well, as the coast seems clear, can't we get
away?" asked Percy.  "We came to rescue you;
our job's done."

"But, if you'll permit me, mine is just
beginning," said Mr. Pratt.  "Do you suppose that I'd
be content to walk meekly away, and let the pack
of scoundrels who have made my house a hotbed
of crime get off with the fruits of their villainy?"  The
old gentleman spoke warmly.  "I've knocked
about the world for more than thirty years, been
in many tight corners, and I've never knuckled
under to man, beast, or circumstance.  This is the
tightest of them all, and, by the Lord Harry, I'll
make a fight for it.  You young fellows----"

"We're with you, sir," cried Armstrong,
enthusiastically.

"Rather!" exclaimed Pratt.  "If you're game,
Uncle Ambrose----"

"Let us keep cool," returned his uncle.  "I'm
no longer under any illusions as to the character
of the wretches I was misguided enough to employ.
They are forgers--that is bad enough--but before
they were forgers they were anarchists, members
of that fraternity of fools whose ideas, put into
practice, would turn the world into a hell.  There
are no more reckless malefactors than these
international gangs who exercise their criminal
propensities under the cloak of political enthusiasm.
Make no mistake, young fellows; in resisting
Gradoff and his gang we take our lives in our
hands.  In their eyes we are of less value than rats."

"We've got to keep 'em out, then," said Percy.

"Let us keep cool, I repeat.  Let us discuss the
situation."

"Yes, sir," said Armstrong, somewhat amazed
at the professional manner of the old gentleman;
"but time's flying, and----"

"Therefore it is vitally important that we should
focus our attention.  As I read the situation, we
shall have to stand a siege.  Gradoff determines
to save his forged notes, if not his accomplice
yonder.  The question is, what will he do?"

"I know what I'd do if I----" began Pratt, but
his uncle silenced him with a gesture.

"What you would do is not in question.  What
Gradoff will do we must infer from the probabilities.
His final aim must be to get away quickly
with his booty.  His booty is inaccessible while we
hold the tower.  Therefore he must either persuade
or compel us to let him in.  Finding persuasion,
reinforced by menace, futile, he will attempt
compulsion.  That is to say, he will bring up all
his men and try to force the door.  It is useless
for us to blink facts--just peep through the crack,
Percy, and see if he is already moving."

Percy reported that still there was no one in sight.

"Then we will continue our calm conference.
Gradoff had four men under him at my house.
One of them, Jensen, the Swede, lies there.  From
what you tell me he employs also Rush, and another
foreigner whom I have never seen.  You tell me
that two strangers--by their appearance foreigners--came
with him to the tower to-day.  Therefore
we are three against eight."

"But we are inside," said Percy.

"As a chicken is inside an egg.  The shell can
be cracked.  That door, stout as it is, can be
hacked through, blown in, or battered down.
Probably they will not risk an explosion; it might
attract even our stolid village policeman to the
scene.  Defending our position with such poor
weapons as we have, we cannot prevent the enemy
from sooner or later forcing an entrance."

"These are surely arguments for scuttling, sir,
while we have time," said Armstrong.

"I am not arguing, but calmly stating facts,"
returned Mr. Pratt.  "Scuttle!  Is it conceivable
that I shall scuttle for fear of this pirate crew, who
have half-starved me, chained me up, carried on
their dastardly work under my roof?  But let me
keep cool," he added, checking the tide of indignation.
"The villains break in, I say, sooner or
later.  What then?  With your assistance I
propose to defend the stairs.  The winding of the
staircase is in favour of the defence.  In so narrow a
space the assailants lose the advantage of numbers.
With resolution we shall hold our own."

"But that can't go on indefinitely, Uncle," said
Pratt.  "They could starve us out."

"Hardly; for this reason.  You will be missed
from your camp.  Mr. Crawshay, you tell me,
knows that you are making investigations.  Your
prolonged absence will alarm him; he will raise a
hue and cry.  Gradoff is perfectly aware that what
he has to do must be done quickly.  If we can
withstand him for twenty-four hours, he is a beaten man."

"You think, then, sir, that they will give it up
within twenty-four hours and then bolt?" said
Armstrong.

"That is my forecast.  They will save their skins
and lose their forged notes, which are no doubt
hidden away somewhere in the tower.  Take another
look out, Percy."

The boy peered through the crack in the boarding,
and again reported no one in sight.

"Come with me to the roof," said his uncle.
"From there we can survey a wide extent of the
park.  Armstrong will oblige me by remaining on
guard."

He led the way up the stairs to the topmost
room.  Here he opened a low door in the wall,
which gave access to a short flight of steps leading
to the flat roof.  Looking out towards the river,
they saw a group of men gathered about the
well-head.  A moment later they caught sight of
Gradoff and the two strangers approaching the
tower from the direction of the house.  Mr. Pratt
leant over the parapet in full view, watching them.
One of the strangers noticed him, and caught
Gradoff by the arm.  The Russian looked up,
halted, and seemed for a moment to be taken aback.
The three men spoke rapidly together, then
advanced to the foot of the tower.  Gradoff tried the
door.  Retreating a few steps, he called up--

"Holà!"

"Well?" said Mr. Pratt, leaning on the parapet.

"Come down and open the door.  I have a
proposition to make."

"Make it now.  I can hear you quite well."

"You have Olof Jensen in the tower?"

"He is a prisoner.  Yes."

"I also have a prisoner--one of three boys.  I
exchange him for Jensen, on condition that you
come out with the other two."

"And then?"

"You shall go free, provided you promise to
remain quietly in the park for two hours and do
not approach the house."

"You would accept my promise?"

"Certainly."

"And what assurance have I that you would
keep yours?"

"You have my word, witnessed by my friends here."

"And what is your word worth, by whomsoever
witnessed?"

Gradoff's habitual smoothness left him.  Shaking
his fist, he shouted--

"I will show you what my word is worth.  If
you do not unbolt the door we shall kill you
like--like a dog.  I give you one minute."

Mr. Pratt leant motionless on the parapet, gazing
down at the three men with a grim smile.  Beside
him his nephew, tingling with excitement, felt
unbounded admiration for this strange uncle of
his.  The minute passed in silence.  Gradoff, watch
in hand, paced restlessly about.  His friends stood
together.

At the end of the minute Gradoff thrust his
watch into his pocket.

"Look out, Uncle!" cried Percy.

One of the strangers had whipped out a revolver
with extraordinary rapidity and fired point-blank
at the motionless figure above.  Mr. Pratt did not
wince--showed neither fear nor agitation.  Slowly
unfolding his arms, he stood erect and turned to
his nephew.

"Come," he said, "I think it is time we went below."





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.. _`"VI ET ARMIS"`:

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   CHAPTER XXIII


.. class:: center medium

   "VI ET ARMIS"

.. vspace:: 2

When uncle and nephew regained the lower
floor they found that Armstrong had not been idle.
From one side of the room he had hauled a long,
stout table and set it up endwise against the door,
between that and the printing press.

"Capital!" said Mr. Pratt.  "You have doubled
the thickness of our armour.  But, in default of
sandbags, we must find something to strengthen
our defences still further."

"I had thought of that, sir," said Armstrong.
"There's nothing but this bale of paper and the
sheets already printed.  I think they will pretty
well fill the space between the press and the door;
if not we can get some of the boxes from below.
They are no longer needed there."

"Excellent idea!  You young fellows set about
that while I keep watch."

In a few minutes the boys had wedged the paper
and a number of boxes into the vacant space, so
as to form almost a solid block.  Mr. Pratt
meanwhile reported the movements of the enemy
without.

"Gradoff is surrounded by his gang.  He is
haranguing them.  Two of them have gone away
towards the river.  Nick Rush looks a little
uncomfortable.  No doubt he prefers stealth and
secrecy, and has visions of the interior of a prison
cell.  Wonderful how brave a man can be if he
thinks he will not be found out.  They are taking
off their coats.  Aha!  They are going to ram us.
The two men have returned with a long pole.  A
pity I had those trees felled; pity, too, that I had
the parapet so thoroughly repaired, or we might
have hurled stones upon our assailants in the
manner of our ancestors.  They used boiling oil,
too, molten lead, and various other pleasant
devices which are out of our power.  Ah!  The
performance is about to begin.  Six of them have
lifted the pole--a fine, straight piece of timber.
One of the strangers, I observe, is lending a hand.
Gradoff is usually so calm and self-contained that
the excitement with which he is now giving orders
is somewhat amusing.  What weapons have we,
by the way?"

"I have that fellow Jensen's pistol, sir," said
Armstrong.  "Besides that we have only short
cudgels."

"And the hammer and chisel," added Percy.

"We are unexpectedly well off," said Mr. Pratt.
"I think I will take the pistol; no doubt I am a
little more used to that sort of thing than
Armstrong.  For the rest--come, my lads, Gradoff has
finished.  Stand ready!"

The position now was that before an entry could
be forced, the door must be broken, and the
barricade of table, boxes and paper overthrown.
Mr. Pratt and the boys had just posted themselves
beside the printing press, when there was a thundering
crash at the door.  The room seemed to quiver;
some of the upper sheets of paper rose and fell as
if a wind had blown upon them; and the vibration
caused the printing press to give forth a low ringing
note.  But the stout oaken door had not yielded.
There were shouts outside.  A few moments
passed; then the building shook under the impact
of a second stroke.

"Heart of oak!" exclaimed Mr. Pratt, with
satisfaction.  "The door is oak; the ram, I think,
is beech.  Listen."

The tones of Gradoff's voice, soaring to an
unnatural pitch, were heard chiding, urging,
encouraging.  A third time his men advanced, not
with the cheery unisonal "Yo! ho!" of British
tars, but each man raising his particular cry.

"More vim in that," remarked Armstrong, as
the shattering blow resounded.  "And look, sir."

About a foot below the upper hinge of the door,
which was not covered by the table, a jagged
streak of light shone through.

"Yes," said Mr. Pratt, coolly.  "They have
cracked the shell.  The hinges will give.  In five
or six minutes they will be scrambling over our
barricade.  I find I have only four cartridges;
they must be reserved for the critical moment.
Percy, run upstairs and bring down the hammer and
chisel--yes, and the chain.  I have no objection
whatever to turning the enemy's weapons against him."

While Percy was absent, the assailants, who
had evidently marked the damage already done,
again rammed the door, on the same side.  There
was a flood of light through a gap nearly a foot
square; splinters of timber across the upturned
end of the table fell at Armstrong's feet.  At the
next blow the door split from top to bottom, and
the whole of the upper part fell inwards.
Apparently the enemy guessed that some attempt at a
barricade had been made, for their next stroke
was delivered lower down, with such force that it
broke through the door, drove the table in, and
sent some of the piled-up boxes toppling.

"Won't you now try a shot, sir?" said Armstrong.

"They have drawn back; next time," replied
Mr. Pratt.  "Stand clear."

Once more the battering-ram was rushed
forward.  It could now be seen that the shorter men
held the fore part; the taller men were behind.
Mr. Pratt raised his arm, but before he could take
deliberate aim the forceful stroke carried the
remnants of the door inwards, and hurled the
shattered table, broken boxes, and flying sheets
of paper in one indistinguishable mass upon the
printing press, which gave way and fell with a
mighty crash upon the floor.  Mr. Pratt barely
escaped being overthrown with it.  He staggered
backward, and the pistol was knocked from his
hand.  The small figure of the Italian chauffeur
leapt into the breach, and began to clamber over
the wreckage.  Armstrong darted forward, and,
before the man had time to swing round,
Armstrong's cudgel descended with a resounding crack
upon his skull, and he fell sprawling among the
litter.

.. _`"HE STAGGERED BACKWARD, AND THE PISTOL WAS KNOCKED FROM HIS HAND"`:

.. figure:: images/img-260.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "HE STAGGERED BACKWARD, AND THE PISTOL WAS KNOCKED FROM HIS HAND."

   "HE STAGGERED BACKWARD, AND THE PISTOL WAS KNOCKED FROM HIS HAND."

But Maximilien Rod was at his heels.  Stumbling
over him, the cook plunged head foremost among
the boxes, only his fall saving him from Armstrong's
club.  Immediately behind him dashed the tall
Pole.  Having no time to swing his cudgel,
Armstrong jabbed at him, and catching him under the
chin sent him reeling against the doorpost.
Meanwhile Mr. Pratt had disengaged himself from the
obstructing press and regained his pistol, just as
Rush and his big comrade of the island forged
through the opening.  The Pole had sprung to his
feet with catlike agility.  A revolver cracked.
Mr. Pratt recoiled, rapidly changed his pistol from the
right hand to the left, and fired.

There was a sudden lull.  Rush and the Finn
had slipped back out of harm's way.  Through the
smoke Armstrong saw two men on the floor--the
chauffeur whom he had felled, and the Pole, victim
to Mr. Pratt's pistol.

"Back to the stairs!" murmured the old
gentleman.  He tottered.

"Are you hit, sir?" cried Armstrong, darting
to his support.

"Yes.  Leave me and hold the stairs."

At this moment the entrance was darkened by
the forms of the remaining members of the attacking
party, Rush and the Finn, urged forward by
Gradoff and his friends.  Armstrong, holding
Mr. Pratt, felt that the game was up.  But now came
Percy leaping down the winding stairs.  Into the
room he dashed, carrying a long bar of iron.
Taking in the situation at a glance, he flung himself
at the foremost intruders.  Rush doubled up
under his vehement onslaught; Sibelius recoiled
upon Gradoff; and the momentary check gave
Armstrong time to haul Mr. Pratt out of the light
to the foot of the dark stairway.  Swiftly
withdrawing from the heap of wreckage, Percy had
barely joined them and helped to draw his uncle
up a few steps to the protection of the curving
wall, when four pistols cracked, and chips of stone
fell clattering upon the stairs.

Immediately afterwards a burly arm and
shoulder showed itself in the round of the wall.
Quick as thought Percy lunged with his iron bar
and jabbed the intruder just below the elbow.
The man threw out a hoarse, savage cry, and
disappeared.  For a brief space there was silence;
then came the noise of heavy feet kicking aside
the debris in the room below, and rushing towards
the stairway.

"Leave me," said Mr. Pratt again, sitting on
one of the steps.

Armstrong sprang down, and darting in front
of Percy, came face to face with one of the strangers,
who was rounding the corner, brandishing a pistol.
Unprepared, apparently, for sudden counter-attack,
and incommoded by the right-hand twist of the
narrow staircase, the man let slip his momentary
chance of firing point-blank, but had enough
presence of mind to dodge the blow Armstrong
aimed at him.  If there had been room for two
abreast on the stairs it might have gone ill with
Armstrong then; he staggered forward and thrust
his hands against the wall to save himself from
falling.  Behind him, however, Percy had swiftly
taken his cue.  With his extemporised pike he
caught the stranger in the middle.  The man
recoiled upon his companions in the rear.  A
storm of curses broke from them, but in a few
moments the din subsided, and nothing was heard
except the low voices of the enemy in consultation.

"Jolly good weapon," whispered Armstrong,
indicating the iron bar.  "Where did you get it?"

"Wrenched it off my uncle's bedstead," replied Percy.

"Any more?"

"One."

"Well, leave me this and go and get it, old chap.
It's more useful than the club."

"Is there time?"

"I think so.  They won't know quite what to
do.  But hurry up.  I'll look after your uncle--give
him first aid.  He ought to go upstairs; by
the time you're down again I'll have him ready to
move."

"Much hurt, Uncle?" asked Pratt, bending down.

"A furrow ploughed in my forearm; nothing vital.
Perhaps one of you will bind up the wound for me."

"I'll do that, sir," said Armstrong.  "Cut
away, Percy."





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.. _`A LEVY EN MASSE`:

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   CHAPTER XXIV


.. class:: center medium

   A LEVY EN MASSE

.. vspace:: 2

To lie on one's back, bitted like a horse, trussed
like a chicken, with flies and midges disporting
themselves, unchecked, about one's features, and
ants making adventurous journeys among one's
clothes, is a situation that, to say the least of it,
puts a strain upon a man's patience and equanimity.
It is not greatly eased by the liberty of his eyes
when their range is limited by dense overhanging
foliage, which stirs in the breeze, opening tantalising
glimpses of a sunbright sky.

On his turfy couch Warrender lay, groaning
inwardly, cursing himself for delaying his errand,
and Fate for bringing his enemies just then upon
the scene; vexing his soul with visions of his
companions caught unawares, and of Mr. Pratt still
chained to his post; blaming himself, with the
insight of the afflicted, for having countenanced a
scheme that usurped the functions of the officers
of the law.  A fly feasted on his nose; gnats
buzzed in and out of his ears; ants chased one
another over his neck and up his arms, causing
him to feel one multitudinous and intricate itch.

He had tried to wriggle himself free from his
bonds, but Rush had not been poacher and fisher
for nothing.  Desisting from his vain struggles,
he lay mumbling his gag, shaking his head like a
tormented horse, and, as the minutes passed,
sweating with alarm.

Presently his straining ears caught the faint
regular thud of oars turning in rowlocks.  The
sound drew nearer.  He tried to shout, but was
capable of nothing more than a gurgling grunt.
The knowledge that a boat was rounding the
southern end of the island set him a-throb with
hope, anxiety, despair--for what should bring the
oarsman to shore?  If, indeed, he should land, what
should draw him to this overgrown spot, or cause
him to pry among the bushes?  The sound began
to recede; the boat was passing on down the river;
his momentary hopefulness was crushed under the
weight of disappointment.

But after a little while his numb spirit was
revivified by the sound of oars approaching again.
He listened with throbbing eagerness.  The
movements were not now so regular; they were
interrupted; presently they ceased altogether.  Then
he heard a rustle, and a slight thud as of some
light-footed person jumping ashore.  Again he
tried to shout, but only the feeblest groan issued.
All was silent.  The new-comer, whoever it was,
had seemingly not moved.  But--was that not
a cry?--a faint coo-ee, like an attenuated echo
rather than a substantive sound.  It came again,
a little louder.  After an interval, a third time,
louder still.  But there was no footstep, no rustling
of branches, or swishing in trodden grass.

Frenzied by the thought of some one standing
within easy reach of him--some one, too, who
was seeking, if not him, at any rate
somebody--Warrender jerked his jaw until he succeeded in
shifting a little the handkerchief knotted behind
his poll; and, blowing out his cheeks, he fetched
from the depth of his throat a note like the boom
of a bull-frog.  He heard--or was it fancy?--a
muffled exclamation.  Again he boomed.  Then--surely
he was not mistaken?--a light-toned voice,
asking, with the breathless utterance of surprise,
"Who is it?"  He could but reply with his
inarticulate bass note.  Footsteps came towards
him; then hesitated.  He boomed encouragement.

"Where are you?"

The words were scarcely above a whisper.
Boom, boom!  The swishing footsteps advanced,
leaves clashed together, twigs snapped, and
Warrender, feeling that his throat would crack and
his cheeks burst, kept up his hollow note in moto
continuo--accelerando--crescendo, as the hoped-for
relief drew nearer.

Presently, after what seemed an age, the foliage
above his head was gently, timorously parted, and
his eyes beheld amazement, concern, indignation
in the face of Lilian Crawshay.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, pushing through the
shrub.  "What--why--oh, you poor thing!"

She dropped on her knees, lifted his head, and
swiftly untied the knot in the handkerchief.

"Thank you," he gasped.

"Who did it?  What does it mean?  But
presently--presently.  Your arms!"

Turning, she sought to untie the knots.  They
were too firm, the rope too coarse, for her little
fingers.

"My knife--coat pocket," murmured Warrender.

In a trice she found the knife; even its keen
blade she had to use as a saw before the bonds were
severed.  Warrender got up, stiffly.  He stretched
his aching arms, shook himself, stamped his feet.

"I can't thank you enough," he said, the words
coming hoarsely through his parched lips.

"But who had the wickedness----?  Never
mind; tell me presently.  What can I do?  There
is something--something terrible, I know.  What
can I do to help?"

"Will you row me to our camp?  As we go, I
shall be able to explain.  My voice is coming back."

"Yes, let us go.  Let me help you."

She took his arm, hurried him on his cramped
legs to the skiff that lay half on the bank, and,
hauling this into the water, assisted him to the
stern thwart.  Then she turned, ran a few steps to
Rush's boat, and brought from it Warrender's cap.

"But for this----" she began.  "Oh, it's too
horrible!"

Springing to her seat facing him, she unshipped
the sculls and began to pull up stream.

"I rowed to your camp," she said.  "My
father gave me a message for you.  I was
surprised to find it deserted, and came down, thinking
I might see some of you on the water.  But there
was no sign of you, and I was returning when I
caught sight of the cap in Rush's boat.  I
wondered.  I knew it belonged to one of you, and it
surprised me to find it there.  I got ashore.  Did
you hear me coo-ee?  It was very soft; I hardly
knew what to think."

Warrender nodded.

"Then I heard that strange sound.  I was a
little frightened; but after a moment I thought
it might be Mr. Pratt; he is funny sometimes.
It was when you didn't answer that I thought
something must be wrong, and--well, you know.
I am so glad I didn't run away.  How long had
you been in that dreadful position?"

"I don't know--an age."

"And was it Rush?"

"Yes.  I must tell you.  The foreigners at the
Red House----"

"Oh, I guessed!  Dear old Father was so
mysterious.  Did he tell you to keep it from me?"

"Well, yes, he did."

"I knew it.  Why does a man like to play the
ostrich?  I knew ages ago there was something
strange happening, and we poor women creatures
mustn't be startled, shocked.  Daddy is an Early
Victorian.  Is it so very horrid?"

"It's a long story.  D'you mind if I tell you
later?  I want you to land, if you will, at the
camp, and go across to your house as quickly as
possible, and ask Mr. Crawshay to bring every man
he can muster, armed, to the tower in Mr. Pratt's
grounds.  One thing I had better tell you at once:
the foreigners had Mr. Pratt a prisoner in the tower."

"Good gracious!  Mr. Ambrose Pratt?"

"Yes.  Here we are.  Please give my message
at once.  Mr. Crawshay will partly understand.
Impress on him that speed is vital."

"And you?"

"I am going to rush up to the village in the
motor-boat."

"But are you able?"

"Quite.  The stiffness is wearing off.  Tell
Mr. Crawshay I am taking some men--all the
able-bodied men I can collect--to the tower, and
if he can somehow send a message to the nearest
town for the police----"

"Yes; I understand.  We've no telegraph or
telephone in this benighted place, but it shall be
done.  You are quite sure you can manage alone?
I don't think you are fit for much exertion, you
know."

"I'm quite all right," replied Warrender, smiling
as he handed the girl ashore.  "By the way, Pratt
and Armstrong are in the tower.  Will you tell
Mr. Crawshay that?  And speed is all important."

"I'll run like a hare.  Good-bye.  I do hope----"

She left her thought unsaid, and, gathering
her skirt, fled across the field towards her home.

Ten minutes afterwards, Warrender ran the
motor-boat alongside the landing-stage, sprang
ashore, and hurried up to the Ferry Inn.  The
door was open--it was the mid-day interval for
refreshment--and he saw a good many familiar
figures with their elbows on the bar, or tipping
up the pots which Joe Rogers, in his shirt-sleeves,
had drawn for them.  His arrival precisely at
this moment could not have happened more
luckily.  Rogers greeted him with a smile; Henery
Drew and one or two others nodded and went on
drinking.  No one spoke; the countryman takes
a minute or two to think of an opening.

"Rogers, my friends, I want your help," said
Warrender.  The rustics looked at him solemnly.
He went on, not pausing to choose his words:
"Those foreigners are forging Treasury notes in
Mr. Pratt's tower.  They have Mr. Pratt himself
a prisoner there."  Eyes widened; pots were
suspended in mid course.  "My chums have got
in and are holding the place against them.  I want
every man of you to come with me and lend a hand.
With your help we'll collar the whole gang.  There's
no time to lose."

No one moved.  Rogers stood staring, with his
hand on the draw-pull.  The others gaped.

"Don't you understand?" cried Warrender.
"Mr. Pratt's in danger.  They're desperate
criminals--six or eight of them against three.
You, Mr. Drew--you're a soldier.  Rogers----"

"What have they done to my sister Molly?"
shouted Rogers.  "Neighbours all, do 'ee hear?
Mr. Pratt, as we thought abroad--'od rabbit it all,
come on!" He darted round the counter.

"Got a gun, Rogers?" asked Warrender.

"Ay, there's a fowling-piece in the parlour,"
cried the man, running back again.

"I've got one up along," said Drew.  "Do 'ee
say now!  I'll fetch 'en."

"Stay!" said Warrender.  "There isn't time.
You must bring what you can.  Don't delay.
Sticks, forks, spades--you've a mattock there,"
he added, addressing a man on the settle against
the wall.  "Bring it along.  All of you bring what
you can lay hands on.  Mr. Drew, you're an active
man.  Run up into the village and collect all the
men you can find, and take them up to the Red
House by the road.  Set a couple to guard the gate,
lead the rest on to the tower.  You others, borrow
some garden tools from Rogers--or anything; and
come with me.  Here's Rogers."  The innkeeper,
minus his wig, came back with his fowling-piece.
"You'll lend your tools?"

"Ay sure.  In the shed, neighbours; you do
know the way.  My poor Molly!"

"I give you five minutes!" cried Warrender.
"Come down to the ferry.  I'll wait for
you--five minutes only."

He hurried out, followed by Rogers.  The
younger men among the rest, bestirring themselves
at last, went round the inn into the garden.  Within
five minutes a group of seven, armed with hoe,
rake, spade, mattock, fork, fowling-piece, and
coal-hammer, was gathered on the landing-stage.

"Squeeze into the boat," said Warrender.
"I'll run you down and land you opposite No Man's
Island.  You must pack tight."

.. _`"'SQUEEZE INTO THE BOAT'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-272.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "'SQUEEZE INTO THE BOAT.'"

   "'SQUEEZE INTO THE BOAT.'"


They crowded into the boat.  Warrender opened
the throttle.  A shriek was heard, and Mrs. Rogers
came flying out of the inn, flourishing her
husband's wig.

"Joe, you gawkhammer, you've left your hair
behind."

"Make it into a stew and be jowned to it!"
shouted Rogers, as the boat hummed away.

Landing on the bank opposite the cottage, the
party hurried through the plantation, Warrender
taking the lead.

"No talking, men," he said.

They emerged into the park.  The tower came
in sight.  From the roof a dense column of brown
smoke rose straight into the still air.  Rogers
groaned.

"God send we be in time!" he murmured, as he
pounded heavily along.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`SQUARING ACCOUNTS`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXV


.. class:: center medium

   SQUARING ACCOUNTS

.. vspace:: 2

Armstrong profited by the enemy's first check
to bind his handkerchief round Mr. Pratt's arm.

"Hadn't you better go upstairs, sir, out of
harm's way?" he asked.

"Call myself a casualty and slink to the rear?
No, thank you, my lad.  Not while I can stand
and use my left arm.  We must hold our ground
here at all costs."

"Here, sir?"

"Yes.  They must not drive us beyond the first
floor.  No doubt they have released the man you
tied up, and the fact that they still attack us shows
there is something upstairs they don't want to leave."

"I saw some tin cases in the room above."

"Filled with forged notes, beyond doubt.  But
what's this?  Do you smell burning?"

"Smoke--wood smoke.  D'you hear the
crackling?  They have fired the tower."

"Not they.  They won't burn their notes.
They want to drive us above.  It is very
ingenious--and very unpleasant."

The pungent smoke from burning wood rolled
up the staircase in ever-increasing volume.  Percy
came running down, carrying, not an iron bar,
but an assegai taken from the wall of the top room.

"Didn't notice it before," he said.

"Run up again and open the door to the roof,"
said his uncle.  "We may as well stave off
asphyxia as long as we can."

Armstrong caught sight of a head peering up
from the round of the wall below.  He raised
his hand suddenly as if to fire.  The head
disappeared.

"Spying to see if we have gone," chuckled
Mr. Pratt.

With the opening of the door above, the smoke
rose more rapidly.  Mr. Pratt coughed.

"I have the misfortune to be a trifle asthmatical,"
he said.  "It is very unpleasant."

"May as well cough, too.  It will encourage
'em," said Armstrong, with a grim smile.  "Percy,
you can manage a churchyard cough."

They both coughed, at first deliberately, but
as the smoke thickened, involuntarily.

Suddenly there was a rush of feet below.
Armstrong bent forward, thrusting out his iron bar;
but the foremost of the assailants, the Swede,
seemed to have expected the move, for he slipped
aside, bent almost double, crying to his comrade
behind him, and sprang towards Percy.  The boy,
having just run downstairs and only at that
moment caught up the assegai, was a little late
with his lunge.  Jensen seized the head of the
weapon and tugged at it, forcing Percy down a
step or two.  To save himself, Percy let go;
the Swede staggered backward against Radewski,
who was in the act of discharging his revolver
at Armstrong.  The jostling of the man's arm
spoilt his aim, and the bullet, which, fired
point-blank, would probably have found its billet in
Armstrong's breast, struck him on the right
shoulder and spun him half round.  Mr. Pratt
had hitherto been unable to use his pistol for fear
of hitting one or other of the boys; but now,
seeing that both were for the moment at a
disadvantage, he dashed between them, fired with
his left hand at the Pole, only two steps below, and
sent him rolling down the stairs with a shot in his
groin.

But the enemy were not this time to be denied.
Jensen, inspired with lust of vengeance, had
quickly recovered his footing.  Immediately below
him Rod and Sibelius, pointing their revolvers,
only awaited an opportunity of firing as soon as
there was no risk of hitting their own comrade.
Mr. Pratt, who was weaker than he knew, had just
pulled his trigger without effect; either the chamber
was empty or something had jammed.  Armstrong,
with a wound in the shoulder, was leaning, for the
moment overcome with pain, against the wall
of the staircase.  Taking in the whole scene,
Percy felt that all was over.  His own weapon
was gone; even if he should seize Armstrong's bar,
single-handed he must soon be overpowered.

At this crisis, by one of those tricks of the mind
which no one can account for, he suddenly
remembered the packet of pepper he had bought in the
village, and one of the uses to which pepper could
be put.  It was still in his pocket.  Snatching it
out, he swiftly unfolded the top of the cone-shaped
paper bag, and holding the bag by the screwed-up
end, he scattered its contents upon the face of
Jensen, just rounding the bend.  With a howl of
rage and pain the Swede recoiled on his comrades
behind, driving them back upon the remainder of
their party at the foot of the stairs.  The volume
of wood smoke had lessened when they started the
attack; and now the cloud of pepper, floating
down slowly upon the fumes, spread over the
whole width of the staircase.  A chorus of sneezes
soared up--a chorus in many parts, from the
shrill tenor of Prutti, the Italian chauffeur, to the
resonant bass of the corpulent Swiss, Maximilien
Rod.  Gradoff's sneeze was distinguishable from
Jensen's, and the two strangers performed a duet
in sternutation.  There were interludes of cursing
and yelling; Rush's sense of humour appeared to
be tickled, as well as his nostrils; for Pratt declared
that he heard him guffawing between his sneezes.
After all, Rush was an Englishman.

The performers were still busy--the audience
on the stairs was about to move a little higher
up--when there came, from some spot without,
a sound of cheers.  Never was applause so
unwelcome to a foreign band.  With the sneezes
now mingled cries of alarm, the noise of feet
scuffling amid litter, a running to and fro.  Percy,
with a whoop of delight, dashed downstairs,
picking up his assegai on the way.  When he
reached the room below, he was momentarily
checked by a sneeze; then, through the clearing
smoke, his streaming eyes beheld two figures
struggling on the floor.  A second glance
distinguished them as Jensen and his old enemy,
Henery Drew.  The farmer was uppermost.

.. _`"THE FARMER WAS UPPERMOST"`:

.. figure:: images/img-279.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "THE FARMER WAS UPPERMOST."

   "THE FARMER WAS UPPERMOST."


"Come and see fair play, Jack," Pratt shouted
up the stairs to Armstrong, who had pulled himself
together and was following him.

From outside came fierce shouts, pistol shots,
the clash of weapons.  Pratt dashed out.  Gradoff
and his gang (all but Rush, who had surrendered
at once) were sustaining an unequal struggle with
the infuriated villagers who had closed upon them.
On the one side Warrender, with Rogers and the
rest, on the other the group of villagers collected
by Drew--of whom the general dealer, smarting
for his unpaid bill, had constituted himself the
temporary leader in rivalry with Constable
Hardstone--a body of some twenty determined men,
who were perhaps a little breathless from haste.
Not so with the others.  As Samson lost his
strength with his hair, so these international
adventurers, desperate, courageous enough, holding
life cheap, became as children under the debilitating
pungency of pepper.  A man cannot sneeze and
fight.  Some few shots were fired; a bullet grazed
Rogers's shining skull; another struck out of
Blevins's hand the mallet he carried; a third
carried away the lobe of an ear from a young
carter, who refused to leave the field until he had
found it.  Short, sharp, decisive, the battle ended
in a general capitulation.  Only one of the foreigners
escaped; Gradoff, seeing that all was lost, kept his
last bullet for himself.

From the doorway Mr. Pratt had watched the
pinioning of the prisoners.  A cheer broke from
his neighbours and tenants.  And, just as a move
towards the house was being made, Mr. Crawshay
and two of his men, armed with shot-guns, came
trotting across the sward.

"God bless you, Pratt, my dear fellow," cried
the old gentleman, grasping his neighbour by the
hand, and shaking it vigorously up and down.

Mr. Pratt sneezed.

"And you, Crawshay," he said.  "But try
the other hand, my friend; my right arm bears an
honourable wound."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`EPILOGUE`:

.. class:: center large

   EPILOGUE

.. vspace:: 2

It was Saturday afternoon.  The spacious lawn
in front of Mr. Crawshay's house was spread with
bamboo tables and deck-chairs.  At the porch
stood Mr. Crawshay and Mr. Ambrose Pratt side
by side, smoking long cigars, chatting and laughing
with the familiarity of old friends.  Mr. Pratt's
right arm was in a sling.

"It's time they came," said Mr. Crawshay, taking
out his watch.  He wore a large panama, and his
suit of spotless ducks gave him a festal air.

"They're probably squabbling for precedence,"
said Mr. Pratt; "not on social grounds, but for
modesty.  It's an ordeal, you know, Crawshay;
and when they see your rig, and that purple tie of
yours, they'll be abashed."

"What'll they say to the women, then?"
returned Mr. Crawshay.  "Upon my soul, Pratt,
I think you are right to come in your old clothes;
they'll feel more at home.  It never occurred to me."

"Oh, well, you're lord of the manor; I dare
say you're right to look the part.  But here they
come, in a bunch.  Mrs. Rogers is, perhaps, a
shade ahead."

Mr. Crawshay turned and called through the
open door.  His daughter, in a dainty confection
of muslin and lace, and a straw hat trimmed with
pink silk, came running out, followed by her mother,
an impressive figure in blue, and our three campers,
in flannels and blazers.  Armstrong also had an
arm in a sling.

Grouped in front of the porch they awaited the
coming of the party that had just entered the drive.
Mrs. Rogers, in stiff black silk, and a wonderful
bonnet, marched along a little in advance of her
husband, hardly recognisable in his Sunday suit
of blue serge and a bowler hat sitting uneasily on
the back of his head.  Samuel Blevins, the general
dealer, had affected a long frock coat and a tall hat.
Henery Drew, magnificent in a brown bowler and
a suit of large-checked tweed, walked beside
Hardstone, the constable, disguised in habiliments that
might have become a prosperous plumber.  The
rest of the company, whose names we do not know,
were alike in one respect; all had donned their
"Sunday best."  Every face, without exception,
wore an air of deep solemnity.

Mr. Crawshay took a step forward.

"Glad to see you, neighbours," he said, genially.
"We are lucky in a fine afternoon."

He shook hands with them individually, a
greeting that inflicted on them various degrees of
embarrassment, deepened by the smiling welcome
of his wife and daughter.  Mr. Pratt contented
himself with a general salutation; it was not until
the boys began to crack jokes with them that the
prevailing gloom lightened.

"You didn't bring your sister, Rogers?" said
Mr. Crawshay to the innkeeper.

"True, sir; she bain't come along."

"She couldn't face 'ee, sir," added Mrs. Rogers.
"I always did say as she was making a rod for
her back, though never did I think Rod was such
a downright wicked feller.  And Henery Drew,
as would have made her a good husband as far as
husbands do go, and now he can't marry her without
committing bigamy."

"Well, well!  We must hope for the best," said
Mr. Crawshay.  "Now, my friends, we're all here.
Take your seats, and we'll have tea."

The company seated themselves.  Maids brought
from the house trays filled with good things.
Mrs. Crawshay poured out tea, and Lilian and the boys
carried round the eatables.  Under the influence
of good cheer the villagers' stiffness wore off, and
they began to descant upon the moving events of
the past days.  For the first time in its history the
village had become a place of importance.  Visitors
had flocked to it from all parts; journalists
with cameras had interviewed the actors in the
drama, and expressed themselves very freely on
Mr. Pratt's refusal to admit them to his grounds,
and to pose for his photograph.  His modesty
in this respect was a standing puzzle to his
humble neighbours.  Mrs. Rogers, for instance, was
extremely proud of the portrait of her husband
that had appeared in the previous day's picture paper.

"The scar shows beautiful," she said, complacently.

"Dear me," said Mrs. Crawshay, with a
discreet glance at Rogers's broad face, "I wasn't
aware----"

"Take off your hat, Joe, and show the lady."

Removing his hat, Rogers displayed a red
furrow that ran across his shiny pate.

"What a narrow escape!" exclaimed Mrs. Crawshay.

"Ay sure, ma'am, 'twas so," said Mrs. Rogers.
"And I'm certain a widow's cap wouldn't have
suited me."

"Well, Mrs. Rogers, you won't be so particular
about Joe's wig after this," said Percy Pratt.
"You see, if he'd worn his wig, his scalp wouldn't
have been touched; think what millions of people
have had the pleasure of admiring your husband,
talking about his bravery, discussing the track of
the bullet across his skull.  No one wanted to take
my photograph."

"They took 'ee unbeknownst, then, becos there
you be, next to Joe, with 'Pepper and Salt'
printed underneath; very clever, I call it, Joe
being once a sailor."

"Oh, I say," exclaimed Pratt, "did they get
the others too?"

"No, sir.  Not as I think it a very good likeness.
You've got your two eyes half shut, and your
mouth is a very queer shape, like as if you was
expecting of somebody to pop something in it--a
drop of physic, maybe."

The villagers looked merely interested, the others
frankly amused.  Pratt blushed.

"He must have caught you when you were
singing a particularly sentimental song, old chap,"
said Warrender, smiling.

"That reminds me," said Mrs. Crawshay.  "Do
bring out your banjo, Mr. Pratt, and sing us
something."

"Wait a minute," said Mr. Crawshay.  "Before
we begin the--entertainment, shall I call it?--I
want to say a word or two."

"Hear, hear!" exclaimed Blevins.  "'Tis what
I call an event."

"No heroics, for goodness' sake, Crawshay,"
murmured Mr. Pratt.

Mr. Crawshay assumed the look of one determined
not to be interfered with.

"I just want to say, neighbours," he proceeded,
"how glad I am to see you all here this afternoon,
in celebration of what Mr. Blevins rightly calls an
event in the simple history of our little parish.
You all had a part in the frustration of the most
nefarious criminal conspiracy that has ever come
within my long experience as a county magistrate.
Thanks to the ingenuity and perseverance of my
dear young friends, their refusal to be intimidated,
their sleepless vigils and untiring watchfulness,
the secrets of that criminal conspiracy were laid
bare, my old friend and neighbour was rescued
from a most distressing situation, and you, anticipating
the slow operation of the law, but sanctioned
by the presence among you of an officer of the law,
were able to secure the apprehension of the whole
band of criminals, who are now awaiting in the
darkness of the county gaol the due reward of their
deeds.  Our village is to be congratulated on
the visit of three young men, typical products of
our renowned public school system, and on the
public spirit of its own inhabitants, who, when
the call for action came, forgetting all class
distinctions, regardless of personal risk, braved the
murderous weapons of unscrupulous villains, and
nobly carried out the first duty of the patriotic
citizen.  I am speaking the mind of you all," the
worthy magistrate went on, warming to his subject,
"when I say that we shall long treasure the memory
of our young friends, their high spirits, their
unfailing cheerfulness under persecution, their courage
and ingenuity; and it is a matter of regret that,
yielding to paramount claims, the claims of parental
affection, they are leaving us to-day.  But it will
please you all to hear that, in response to my
invitation--I may say to my insistence--they
have agreed to visit us again next year; and I
understand from my old friend and neighbour,
Mr. Pratt, that he intends to acquire No Man's
Island, so long derelict, and restore the cottage as
a holiday hostel for boys of our public schools."

Here there were general cheers.

"Dear old Father!" whispered Lilian to the
boys.  "He gets so few chances of making a
speech, and he does love it so."

"I won't detain you longer," Mr. Crawshay went
on.  "No doubt Mr. Pratt would like to say a few
words."

"Hate it!" exclaimed Mr. Pratt.  "One thing
only.  I've had a bad time.  I deserved it.  I
was over-hasty.  My old servants are scattered;
if any of you know where they are, tell them to
come to me.  I'll reinstate them--if we can agree
about wages."

Under cover of the villagers' applause, Percy
seized the opportunity of unbosoming himself to
a select audience, his companions and Lilian
Crawshay.

"Are we blushing, Miss Crawshay?" he asked.
"I don't think we are, because, you see, we are
supremely conscious of each other's merits.  We
really are benefactors, you know--public and
private.  Who would ever believe that the two
old gentlemen were not long ago calling each other
luna----"

"Now, Mr. Pratt," the girl interrupted.

"Well, X and Y then," rejoined Pratt.  "It's
undeniable, isn't it, that they're reconciled through
us?  And as for my uncle and me, we're quite
pally; the old feud is healed, and before long I
expect my father and Uncle Ambrose will kiss
again with tears.  Tennyson, you know.
Anyway, it's been a ripping holiday, and----"

"Now, Mr. Pratt, we are all waiting," said
Mrs. Crawshay, amiably.

Pratt obediently went into the house, brought
out his banjo, and trolled out ditties of the
most sentimental order.  Presently Warrender
announced that it was time to go if they meant to
reach Southampton before dark.  The whole
company trooped down to the bank with them, and
watched them board the motor-boat, already
loaded with their camp equipment.  Last
good-byes were said; Warrender opened the throttle;
and as the boat panted down stream there came to
the ears of the silent spectators the gentle
strumming of the banjo, and Pratt's melodious tenor--

   |   "Our hearts were once divided,
   |     But now they beat as one;
   |   The clouds roll by across the sky,
   |     And yonder shines the sun."
   |

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center small

   THE END

.. vspace:: 6

.. pgfooter::
