The Adventure of the Bald Archaeologist
I spent the night on a shelf of the hillside, in the lee of a boulder where
the heather grew long and soft. It was a cold business, for I had neither
coat nor waistcoat. These were in Mr Turnbull's keeping, as was Scudder's
little book, my watch and - worst of all - my pipe and tobacco pouch. Only
my money accompanied me in my belt, and about half a pound of ginger biscuits
in my trousers pocket.
I supped off half those biscuits, and by worming myself deep into the heather
got some kind of warmth. My spirits had risen, and I was beginning to enjoy
this crazy game of hide-and-seek. So far I had been miraculously lucky. The
milkman, the literary innkeeper, Sir Harry, the roadman, and the idiotic
Marmie, were all pieces of undeserved good fortune. Somehow the first success
gave me a feeling that I was going to pull the thing through.
My chief trouble was that I was desperately hungry. When a Jew shoots himself
in the City and there is an inquest, the newspapers usually report that the
deceased was 'well-nourished'. I remember thinking that they would not call
me well-nourished if I broke my neck in a bog-hole. I lay and tortured myself
- for the ginger biscuits merely emphasized the aching void - with the memory
of all the good food I had thought so little of in London. There were Paddock's
crisp sausages and fragrant shavings of bacon, and shapely poached eggs -
how often I had turned up my nose at them! There were the cutlets they did
at the club, and a particular ham that stood on the cold table, for which
my soul lusted. My thoughts hovered over all varieties of mortal edible,
and finally settled on a porterhouse steak and a quart of bitter with a welsh
rabbit to follow. In longing hopelessly for these dainties I fell asleep.
I woke very cold and stiff about an hour after dawn. It took me a little
while to remember where I was, for I had been very weary and had slept heavily.
I saw first the pale blue sky through a net of heather, then a big shoulder
of hill, and then my own boots placed neatly in a blaeberry bush. I raised
myself on my arms and looked down into the valley, and that one look set
me lacing up my boots in mad haste.
For there were men below, not more than a quarter of a mile off, spaced out
on the hillside like a fan, and beating the heather. Marmie had not been
slow in looking for his revenge.
I crawled out of my shelf into the cover of a boulder, and from it gained
a shallow trench which slanted up the mountain face. This led me presently
into the narrow gully of a burn, by way of which I scrambled to the top of
the ridge. From there I looked back, and saw that I was still undiscovered.
My pursuers were patiently quartering the hillside and moving upwards.
Keeping behind the skyline I ran for maybe half a mile, till I judged I was
above the uppermost end of the glen. Then I showed myself, and was instantly
noted by one of the flankers, who passed the word to the others. I heard
cries coming up from below, and saw that the line of search had changed its
direction. I pretended to retreat over the skyline, but instead went back
the way I had come, and in twenty minutes was behind the ridge overlooking
my sleeping place. From that viewpoint I had the satisfaction of seeing the
pursuit streaming up the hill at the top of the glen on a hopelessly false
scent.
I had before me a choice of routes, and I chose a ridge which made an angle
with the one I was on, and so would soon put a deep glen between me and my
enemies. The exercise had warmed my blood, and I was beginning to enjoy myself
amazingly. As I went I breakfasted on the dusty remnants of the ginger biscuits.
I knew very little about the country, and I hadn't a notion what I was going
to do. I trusted to the strength of my legs, but I was well aware that those
behind me would be familiar with the lie of the land, and that my ignorance
would be a heavy handicap. I saw in front of me a sea of hills, rising very
high towards the south, but northwards breaking down into broad ridges which
separated wide and shallow dales. The ridge I had chosen seemed to sink after
a mile or two to a moor which lay like a pocket in the uplands. That seemed
as good a direction to take as any other.
My stratagem had given me a fair start - call it twenty minutes -and I had
the width of a glen behind me before I saw the first heads of the pursuers.
The police had evidently called in local talent to their aid, and the men
I could see had the appearance of herds or gamekeepers. They hallooed at
the sight of me, and I waved my hand. Two dived into the glen and began to
climb my ridge, while the others kept their own side of the hill. I felt
as if I were taking part in a schoolboy game of hare and hounds.
But very soon it began to seem less of a game. Those fellows behind were
hefty men on their native heath. Looking back I saw that only three were
following direct, and I guessed that the others had fetched a circuit to
cut me off. My lack of local knowledge might very well be my undoing, and
I resolved to get out of this tangle of glens to the pocket of moor I had
seen from the tops. I must so increase my distance as to get clear away from
them, and I believed I could do this if I could find the right ground for
it. If there had been cover I would have tried a bit of stalking, but on
these bare slopes you could see a fly a mile off. My hope must be in the
length of my legs and the soundness of my wind, but I needed easier ground
for that, for I was not bred a mountaineer. How I longed for a good Afrikander
pony!
I put on a great spurt and got off my ridge and down into the moor before
any figures appeared on the skyline behind me. I crossed a burn, and came
out on a highroad which made a pass between two glens. All in front of me
was a big field of heather sloping up to a crest which was crowned with an
odd feather of trees. In the dyke by the roadside was a gate, from which
a grass-grown track led over the first wave of the moor.
I jumped the dyke and followed it, and after a few hundred yards- as soon
as it was out of sight of the highway - the grass stopped and it became a
very respectable road, which was evidently kept with some care. Clearly it
ran to a house, and I began to think of doing the same. Hitherto my luck
had held, and it might be that my best chance would be found in this remote
dwelling. Anyhow there were trees there, and that meant cover.
I did not follow the road, but the burnside which flanked it on the right,
where the bracken grew deep and the high banks made a tolerable screen. It
was well I did so, for no sooner had I gained the hollow than, looking back,
I saw the pursuit topping the ridge from which I had descended.
After that I did not look back; I had no time. I ran up the burnside, crawling
over the open places, and for a large part wading in the shallow stream.
I found a deserted cottage with a row of phantom peat-stacks and an overgrown
garden. Then I was among young hay, and very soon had come to the edge of
a plantation of wind-blown firs. From there I saw the chimneys of the house
smoking a few hundred yards to my left. I forsook the burnside, crossed another
dyke, and almost before I knew was on a rough lawn. A glance back told me
that I was well out of sight of the pursuit, which had not yet passed the
first lift of the moor.
The lawn was a very rough place, cut with a scythe instead of a mower, and
planted with beds of scrubby rhododendrons. A brace of black-game, which
are not usually garden birds, rose at my approach. The house before me was
the ordinary moorland farm, with a more pretentious whitewashed wing added.
Attached to this wing was a glass veranda, and through the glass I saw the
face of an elderly gentleman meekly watching me.
I stalked over the border of coarse hill gravel and entered the open veranda
door. Within was a pleasant room, glass on one side, and on the other a mass
of books. More books showed in an inner room. On the floor, instead of tables,
stood cases such as you see in a museum, filled with coins and queer stone
implements.
There was a knee-hole desk in the middle, and seated at it, with some papers
and open volumes before him, was the benevolent old gentleman. His face was
round and shiny, like Mr Pickwick's, big glasses were stuck on the end of
his nose, and the top of his head was as bright and bare as a glass bottle.
He never moved when I entered, but raised his placid eyebrows and waited
on me to speak.
It was not an easy job, with about five minutes to spare, to tell a stranger
who I was and what I wanted, and to win his aid. I did not attempt it. There
was something about the eye of the man before me, something so keen and
knowledgeable, that I could not find a word. I simply stared at him and
stuttered.
'You seem in a hurry, my friend,'he said slowly.
I nodded towards the window. It gave a prospect across the moor through a
gap in the plantation, and revealed certain figures half a mile off straggling
through the heather.
'Ah, I see,' he said, and took up a pair of field-glasses through which he
patiently scrutinized the figures.
'A fugitive from justice, eh? Well, we'll go into the matter at our leisure.
Meantime I object to my privacy being broken in upon by the clumsy rural
policeman. Go into my study, and you will see two doors facing you. Take
the one on the left and close it behind you. You will be perfectly safe.'
And this extraordinary man took up his pen again.
I did as I was bid, and found myself in a little dark chamber which smelt
of chemicals, and was lit only by a tiny window high up in the wall. The
door had swung behind me with a click like the door of a safe. Once again
I had found an unexpected sanctuary.
All the same I was not comfortable. There was something about the old gentleman
which puzzled and rather terrified me. He had been too easy and ready, almost
as if he had expected me. And his eyes had been horribly intelligent.
No sound came to me in that dark place. For all I knew the police might be
searching the house, and if they did they would want to know what was behind
this door. I tried to possess my soul in patience, and to forget how hungry
I was.
Then I took a more cheerful view. The old gentleman could scarcely refuse
me a meal, and I fell to reconstructing my breakfast. Bacon and eggs would
content me, but I wanted the better part of a flitch of bacon and half a
hundred eggs. And then, while my mouth was watering in anticipation, there
was a click and the door stood open.
I emerged into the sunlight to find the master of the house sitting in a
deep armchair in the room he called his study, and regarding me with curious
eyes.
'Have they gone?' I asked.
'They have gone. I convinced them that you had crossed the hill. I do not
choose that the police should come between me and one whom I am delighted
to honour. This is a lucky morning for you, Mr Richard Hannay.'
As he spoke his eyelids seemed to tremble and to fall a little over his keen
grey eyes. In a flash the phrase of Scudder's came back to me, when he had
described the man he most dreaded in the world. He had said that he 'could
hood his eyes like a hawk'. Then I saw that I had walked straight into the
enemy's headquarters.
My first impulse was to throttle the old ruffian and make for the open air.
He seemed to anticipate my intention, for he smiled gently, and nodded to
the door behind me.
I turned, and saw two men-servants who had me covered with pistols. He knew
my name, but he had never seen me before. And as the reflection darted across
my mind I saw a slender chance.
'I don't know what you mean,' I said roughly. 'And who are you calling Richard
Hannay? My name's Ainslie.'
'So?' he said, still smiling. 'But of course you have others. We won't quarrel
about a name.'
I was pulling myself together now, and I reflected that my garb, lacking
coat and waistcoat and collar, would at any rate not betray me. I put on
my surliest face and shrugged my shoulders.
'I suppose you're going to give me up after all, and I call it a damned dirty
trick. My God, I wish I had never seen that cursed motor-car! Here's the
money and be damned to you,' and I flung four sovereigns on the table.
He opened his eyes a little. 'Oh no, I shall not give you up. My friends
and I will have a little private settlement with you, that is all. You know
a little too much, Mr Hannay. You are a clever actor, but not quite clever
enough.'
He spoke with assurance, but I could see the dawning of a doubt in his mind.
'Oh, for God's sake stop jawing,' I cried. 'Everything's against me. I haven't
had a bit of luck since I came on shore at Leith. What's the harm in a poor
devil with an empty stomach picking up some money he finds in a bust-up
motor-car? That's all I done, and for that I've been chivvied for two days
by those blasted bobbies over those blasted hills. I tell you I'm fair sick
of it. You can do what you like, old boy! Ned Ainslie's got no fight left
in him.'
I could see that the doubt was gaining.
'Will you oblige me with the story of your recent doings?' he asked.
'I can't, guv'nor,' I said in a real beggar's whine. 'I've not had a bite
to eat for two days. Give me a mouthful of food, and then you'll hear God's
truth.'
I must have showed my hunger in my face, for he signalled to one of the men
in the doorway. A bit of cold pie was brought and a glass of beer, and I
wolfed them down like a pig - or rather, like Ned Ainslie, for I was keeping
up my character. In the middle of my meal he spoke suddenly to me in German,
but I turned on him a face as blank as a stone wall.
Then I told him my story - how I had come off an Archangel ship at Leith
a week ago, and was making my way overland to my brother at Wigtown. I had
run short of cash - I hinted vaguely at a spree - and I was pretty well on
my uppers when I had come on a hole in a hedge, and, looking through, had
seen a big motor-car lying in the burn. I had poked about to see what had
happened, and had found three sovereigns lying on the seat and one on the
floor.
There was nobody there or any sign of an owner, so I had pocketed the cash.
But somehow the law had got after me. When I had tried to change a sovereign
in a baker's shop, the woman had cried on the police, and a little later,
when I was washing my face in a burn, I had been nearly gripped, and had
only got away by leaving my coat and waistcoat behind me.
'They can have the money back,' I cried, 'for a fat lot of good it's done
me. Those perishers are all down on a poor man. Now, if it had been you,
guv'nor, that had found the quids, nobody would have troubled you.'
'You're a good liar, Hannay,' he said.
I flew into a rage. 'Stop fooling, damn you! I tell you my name's Ainslie,
and I never heard of anyone called Hannay in my born days. I'd sooner have
the police than you with your Hannays and your monkey-faced pistol tricks
... No, guv'nor, I beg pardon, I don't mean that. I'm much obliged to you
for the grub, and I'll thank you to let me go now the coast's clear.'
It was obvious that he was badly puzzled. You see he had never seen me, and
my appearance must have altered considerably from my photographs, if he had
got one of them. I was pretty smart and well dressed in London, and now I
was a regular tramp.
'I do not propose to let you go. If you are what you say you are, you will
soon have a chance of clearing yourself. If you are what I believe you are,
I do not think you will see the light much longer.'
He rang a bell, and a third servant appeared from the veranda.
'I want the Lanchester in five minutes,' he said. 'There will be three to
luncheon.'
Then he looked steadily at me, and that was the hardest ordeal of all.
There was something weird and devilish in those eyes, cold, malignant, unearthly,
and most hellishly clever. They fascinated me like the bright eyes of a snake.
I had a strong impulse to throw myself on his mercy and offer to join his
side, and if you consider the way I felt about the whole thing you will see
that that impulse must have been purely physical, the weakness of a brain
mesmerized and mastered by a stronger spirit. But I managed to stick it out
and even to grin.
'You'll know me next time, guv'nor,' I said.
'Karl,' he spoke in German to one of the men in the doorway, 'you will put
this fellow in the storeroom till I return, and you will be answerable to
me for his keeping.'
I was marched out of the room with a pistol at each ear.
The storeroom was a damp chamber in what had been the old farmhouse. There
was no carpet on the uneven floor, and nothing to sit down on but a school
form. It was black as pitch, for the windows were heavily shuttered. I made
out by groping that the walls were lined with boxes and barrels and sacks
of some heavy stuff. The whole place smelt of mould and disuse. My gaolers
turned the key in the door, and I could hear them shifting their feet as
they stood on guard outside.
I sat down in that chilly darkness in a very miserable frame of mind. The
old boy had gone off in a motor to collect the two ruffians who had interviewed
me yesterday. Now, they had seen me as the roadman, and they would remember
me, for I was in the same rig. What was a roadman doing twenty miles from
his beat, pursued by the police? A question or two would put them on the
track. Probably they had seen Mr Turnbull, probably Marmie too; most likely
they could link me up with Sir Harry, and then the whole thing would be crystal
clear. What chance had I in this moorland house with three desperadoes and
their armed servants?
I began to think wistfully of the police, now plodding over the hills after
my wraith. They at any rate were fellow-countrymen and honest men, and their
tender mercies would be kinder than these ghoulish aliens. But they wouldn't
have listened to me. That old devil with the eyelids had not taken long to
get rid of them. I thought he probably had some kind of graft with the
constabulary.
Most likely he had letters from Cabinet Ministers saying he was to be given
every facility for plotting against Britain. That's the sort of owlish way
we run our politics in the Old Country.
The three would be back for lunch, so I hadn't more than a couple of hours
to wait. It was simply waiting on destruction, for I could see no way out
of this mess. I wished that I had Scudder's courage, for I am free to confess
I didn't feel any great fortitude. The only thing that kept me going was
that I was pretty furious. It made me boil with rage to think of those three
spies getting the pull on me like this. I hoped that at any rate I might
be able to twist one of their necks before they downed me.
The more I thought of it the angrier I grew, and I had to get up and move
about the room. I tried the shutters, but they were the kind that lock with
a key, and I couldn't move them. From the outside came the faint clucking
of hens in the warm sun. Then I groped among the sacks and boxes. I couldn't
open the latter, and the sacks seemed to be full of things like dog-biscuits
that smelt of cinnamon. But, as I circumnavigated the room, I found a handle
in the wall which seemed worth investigating.
It was the door of a wall cupboard - what they call a 'press' in Scotland
- and it was locked. I shook it, and it seemed rather flimsy. For want of
something better to do I put out my strength on that door, getting some purchase
on the handle by looping my braces round it. Presently the thing gave with
a crash which I thought would bring in my warders to inquire. I waited for
a bit, and then started to explore the cupboard shelves.
There was a multitude of queer things there. I found an odd vesta or two
in my trouser pockets and struck a light. It was out in a second, but it
showed me one thing. There was a little stock of electric torches on one
shelf. I picked up one, and found it was in working order.
With the torch to help me I investigated further. There were bottles and
cases of queer-smelling stuffs, chemicals no doubt for experiments, and there
were coils of fine copper wire and yanks and yanks of thin oiled silk. There
was a box of detonators, and a lot of cord for fuses. Then away at the back
of the shelf I found a stout brown cardboard box, and inside it a wooden
case. I managed to wrench it open, and within lay half a dozen little grey
bricks, each a couple of inches square.
I took up one, and found that it crumbled easily in my hand. Then I smelt
it and put my tongue to it. After that I sat down to think. I hadn'tbeen
a mining engineer for nothing, and I knew lentonite when I saw it.
With one of these bricks I could blow the house to smithereens. I had used
the stuff in Rhodesia and knew its power. But the trouble was that my knowledge
wasn't exact. I had forgotten the proper charge and the right way of preparing
it, and I wasn't sure about the timing. I had only a vague notion, too, as
to its power, for though I had used it I had not handled it with my own fingers.
But it was a chance, the only possible chance. It was a mighty risk, but
against it was an absolute black certainty. If I used it the odds were, as
I reckoned, about five to one in favour of my blowing myself into the tree-tops;
but if I didn't I should very likely be occupying a six-foot hole in the
garden by the evening.
That was the way I had to look at it. The prospect was pretty dark either
way, but anyhow there was a chance, both for myself and for my country.
The remembrance of little Scudder decided me. It was about the beastliest
moment of my life, for I'm no good at these cold-blooded resolutions. Still
I managed to rake up the pluck to set my teethand choke back the horrid doubts
that flooded in on me. I simply shut off my mind and pretended I was doing
an experiment as simple as Guy Fawkes fireworks.
I got a detonator, and fixed it to a couple of feet of fuse. Then I took
a quarter of a lentonite brick, and buried it near the door below one of
the sacks in a crack of the floor, fixing the detonator in it. For all I
knew half those boxes might be dynamite. If the cupboard held such deadly
explosives, why not the boxes? In that case there would be a glorious skyward
journey for me and the German servants and about an acre of surrounding country.
There was also the risk that the detonation might set off the other bricks
in the cupboard, for I had forgotten most that I knew about lentonite. But
it didn't do to begin thinking about the possibilities. The odds were horrible,
but I had to take them.
I ensconced myself just below the sill of the window, and lit the fuse. Then
I waited for a moment or two. There was dead silence - only a shuffle of
heavy boots in the passage, and the peaceful cluck of hens from the warm
out-of-doors. I commended my soul to my Maker, and wondered where I would
be in five seconds ...
A great wave of heat seemed to surge upwards from the floor, and hang for
a blistering instant in the air. Then the wall oppositeme flashed into a
golden yellow and dissolved with a rending thunder that hammered my brain
into a pulp. Something dropped on me, catching the point of my left shoulder.
And then I think I became unconscious.
My stupor can scarcely have lasted beyond a few seconds. I felt myself being
choked by thick yellow fumes, and struggled out of the debris to my feet.
Somewhere behind me I felt fresh air. The jambs of the window had fallen,
and through the ragged rent the smoke was pouring out to the summer noon.
I stepped over the broken lintel, and found myself standing in a yard in
a dense and acrid fog. I felt very sick and ill, but I could move my limbs,
and I staggered blindly forward away from the house.
A small mill-lade ran in a wooden aqueduct at the other side of the yard,
and into this I fell. The cool water revived me, and I had just enough wits
left to think of escape. I squirmed up the lade among the slippery green
slime till I reached the mill-wheel. Then I wriggled through the axle hole
into the old mill and tumbled on to a bed of chaff. A nail caught the seat
of my trousers, and I left a wisp of heather-mixture behind me.
The mill had been long out of use. The ladders were rotten with age, and
in the loft the rats had gnawed great holes in the floor. Nausea shook me,
and a wheel in my head kept turning, while my left shoulder and arm seemed
to be stricken with the palsy. I looked out of the window and saw a fog still
hanging over the house and smoke escaping from an upper window. Please God
I had set the place on fire, for I could hear confused cries coming from
the other side.
But I had no time to linger, since this mill was obviously a bad hiding-place.
Anyone looking for me would naturally follow the lade, and I made certain
the search would begin as soon as they found that my body was not in
the storeroom. From another window I saw that on the far side of the mill
stood an old stone dovecot. If I could get there without leaving tracks I
might find a hiding-place, for I argued that my enemies, if they thought
I could move, would conclude I had made for open country, and would go seeking
me on the moor.
I crawled down the broken ladder, scattering chaff behind me to cover my
footsteps. I did the same on the mill floor, and on the threshold where the
door hung on broken hinges. Peeping out, I saw that between me and the dovecot
was a piece of bare cobbled ground, where no footmarks would show. Also it
was mercifully hid by the mill buildings from any view from the house. I
slipped across the space, got to the back of the dovecot and prospected a
way of ascent.
That was one of the hardest jobs I ever took on. My shoulder and arm ached
like hell, and I was so sick and giddy that I was always on the verge of
falling. But I managed it somehow. By the use of out-jutting stones and gaps
in the masonry and a tough ivy root I got to the top in the end. There was
a little parapet behind which I found space to lie down. Then I proceeded
to go off into an old-fashioned swoon.
I woke with a burning head and the sun glaring in my face. For a long time
I lay motionless, for those horrible fumes seemed to have loosened my joints
and dulled my brain. Sounds came to me from the house - men speaking throatily
and the throbbing of a stationary car. There was a little gap in the parapet
to which I wriggled, and from which I had some sort of prospect of the yard.
I saw figures come out - a servant with his head bound up, and then a younger
man in knickerbockers. They were looking for something, and moved towards
the mill. Then one of them caught sight of the wisp of cloth on the nail,
and cried out to the other. They both went back to the house, and brought
two more to look at it. I saw the rotund figure of my late captor, and I
thought I made out the man with the lisp. I noticed that all had pistols.
For half an hour they ransacked the mill. I could hear them kicking over
the barrels and pulling up the rotten planking. Then they came outside, and
stood just below the dovecot arguing fiercely. The servant with the bandage
was being soundly rated. I heard them fiddling with the door of the dovecote
and for one horrid moment I fancied they were coming up. Then they thought
better of it, and went back to the house.
All that long blistering afternoon I lay baking on the rooftop. Thirst was
my chief torment. My tongue was like a stick, and to make it worse I could
hear the cool drip of water from the mill-lade. I watched the course of the
little stream as it came in from the moor, and my fancy followed it to the
top of the glen, where it must issue from an icy fountain fringed with cool
ferns and mosses. I would have given a thousand pounds to plunge my face
into that.
I had a fine prospect of the whole ring of moorland. I saw the car speed
away with two occupants, and a man on a hill pony riding east. I judged they
were looking for me, and I wished them joy of their quest.
But I saw something else more interesting. The house stood almost on the
summit of a swell of moorland which crowned a sort of plateau, and there
was no higher point nearer than the big hills six miles off. The actual summit,
as I have mentioned, was a biggish clump of trees - firs mostly, with a few
ashes and beeches.
On the dovecot I was almost on a level with the tree-tops, and could see
what lay beyond. The wood was not solid, but only a ring, and inside was
an oval of green turf, for all the world like a big cricket-field.
I didn't take long to guess what it was. It was an aerodrome, and a secret
one. The place had been most cunningly chosen. For suppose anyone were watching
an aeroplane descending here, he would think it had gone over the hill beyond
the trees. As the place was on the top of a rise in the midst of a big
amphitheatre, any observer from any direction would conclude it had passed
out of view behind the hill. Only a man very close at hand would realize
that the aeroplane had not gone over but had descended in the midst of the
wood. An observer with a telescope on one of the higher hills might have
discovered the truth, but only herds went there, and herds do not carry
spy-glasses. When I looked from the dovecot I could see far away a blue line
which I knew was the sea, and I grew furious to think that our enemies had
this secret conning-tower to rake our waterways.
Then I reflected that if that aeroplane came back the chances were ten to
one that I would be discovered. So through the afternoon I lay and prayed
for the coming of darkness, and glad I was when the sun went down over the
big western hills and the twilight haze crept over the moor. The aeroplane
was late. The gloaming was far advanced when I heard the beat of wings and
saw it volplaning downward to its home in the wood. Lights twinkled for a
bit and there was much coming and going from the house. Then the dark fell,
and silence.
Thank God it was a black night. The moon was well on its last quarter and
would not rise till late. My thirst was too great to allow me to tarry, so
about nine o'clock, so far as I could judge, I started to descend. It wasn't
easy, and half-way down I heard the back door of the house open, and saw
the gleam of a lantern against the mill wall. For some agonizing minutes
I hung by the ivy and prayed that whoever it was would not come round by
the dovecot. Then the light disappeared, and I dropped as softly as I could
on to the hard soil of the yard.
I crawled on my belly in the lee of a stone dyke till I reached the fringe
of trees which surrounded the house. If I had known how to do it I would
have tried to put that aeroplane out of action, but I realized that any attempt
would probably be futile. I was pretty certain that there would be some kind
of defence round the house, so I went through the wood on hands and knees,
feeling carefully every inch before me. It was as well, for presently I came
on a wire about two feet from the ground. If I had tripped over that, it
would doubtless have rung some bell in the house and I would have been captured.
A hundred yards farther on I found another wire cunningly placed on the edge
of a small stream. Beyond that lay the moor, and in five minutes I was deep
in bracken and heather. Soon I was round the shoulder of the rise, in the
little glen from which the mill-lade flowed. Ten minutes later my face was
in the spring, and I was soaking down pints of the blessed water. But I did
not stop till I had put half a dozen miles between me and that accursed dwelling.
Chapter Seven |
