He told off a fatigue party--the Princess, Sir Archie and McGuffog--to help in moving furniture to the several doors. Sime and Carfrae attended to the kitchen entrance, while he himself made a tour of the ground-floor windows. For half an hour the empty house was loud with strange sounds. McGuffog, who was a giant in strength, filled the passage at the verandah end with an assortment of furniture ranging from a grand piano to a vast mahogany sofa, while Saskia and Sir Archie pillaged the bedrooms and packed up the interstices with mattresses in lieu of sandbags. Dougal on his return saw fit to approve their work. "That'll fickle the blagyirds. Down at the kitchen door we've got a mangle, five wash-tubs and the best part of a ton o' coal. It's the windies I'm anxious about, for they're ower big to fill up. But I've gotten tubs o' water below them and a lot o' wire-nettin' I fund in the cellar." Sir Archie morosely wiped his brow. "I can't say I ever hated a job more," he told Saskia. "It seems pretty cool to march into somebody else's house and make free with his furniture. I hope to goodness our friends from the sea do turn up, or we'll look pretty foolish. Loudon will have a score against me he won't forget." "Ye're no' weakenin'?" asked Dougal fiercely. "Not a bit. Only hopin' somebody hasn't made a mighty big mistake." "Ye needn't be feared for that. Now you listen to your instructions. We're terrible few for such a big place, but we maun make up for shortness o' numbers by extra mobility. The gemkeeper will keep the windy that looks on the verandy, and fell any man that gets through. You'll hold the verandy door, and the ither lame man--is't Carfrae ye call him?--will keep the back door. I've telled the one-armed man, who has some kind of a head on him, that he maun keep on the move, watchin' to see if they try the front door or any o' the other windies. If they do, he takes his station there. D'ye follow?" Sir Archie nodded gloomily. "What is my post?" Saskia asked. "I've appointed ye my Chief of Staff," was the answer. "Ye see we've no reserves. If this door's the dangerous bit, it maun be reinforced from elsewhere; and that'll want savage thinkin'. Ye'll have to be ay on the move, Mem, and keep me informed. If they break in at two bits, we're beat, and there'll be nothin' for it but to retire to our last position. Ye ken the room ayont the hall where they keep the coats. That's our last trench, and at the worst we fall back there and stick it out. It has a strong door and a wee windy, so they'll no' be able to get in on our rear. We should be able to put up a good defence there, unless they fire the place over our heads.... Now, we'd better give out the guns." "We don't want any shootin' if we can avoid it," said Sir Archie, who found his distaste for Dougal growing, though he was under the spell of the one being there who knew precisely his own mind.