There were distant sounds on the moor; nothing stirred nearer.
"Are you coming back?" he shouted, "or must I go after you?"
Suddenly in the night their motor roared. At the same moment, far
across the lake, he saw the headlights of other motors glide over
Isla Bridge like low-flying stars.
"Yellow-hair!"
There was no sound behind him. He turned.
The fainting girl lay amid her drenched yellow hair in the ferns,
partly covered by the clothing which she had drawn over her with her
last conscious effort.
It is a long way across Isla Water. And twice across is longer. And
"The Cold Hand of Isla" summons the chief of Clan Morhguinn when his
time has come to look upon his own wraith face to face. But The Cold
Hand of Isla had touched this girl in vain--MOLADH MAIRI!!
"Yellow-hair! Yellow-hair!" he whispered. The roar of rushing motors
from Glenark filled his ears. He picked up one of her little hands
and chafed it. Then she opened her golden eyes, looked up at him,
and a flood of rose dyed her body from brow to ankle.
"It--it is a long way across Isla Water," she stammered. "I'm very
tired--Kay!"
"You below there!" shouted McKay. "Are there constables among you?"
"Aye, sir!" came the loud response amid the roar of running engines.
"Then there'll be whiskey and blankets, I'm thinkin'!" cried McKay.
"Aye, blankets for the dead if there be any!"
"Kick 'em into the whinns and bring what ye bring for the living!"
said McKay in a loud, joyous voice. "And if you've petrol and speed
take the Banff road and be on your way, for the Boche are crawling
to cover, and it's fine running the night! Get on there, ye Glenark
beagles! And leave a car behind for me and mine!"
A constable, shining his lantern, came clumping up the Pulpit. McKay
snatched the heavy blankets and with one mighty movement swept the
girl into them.
Half-conscious she coughed and gasped at the whiskey, then lay very
still as McKay lifted her in his arms and strode out under the
paling stars of Isla.
CHAPTER VI
MOUNT TERRIBLE
Toward the last of May a handsome young man wearing a smile and the
uniform of an American Intelligence Officer arrived at Delle, a
French village on the Franco-Swiss frontier.
His credentials being satisfactory he was directed by the Major of
Alpinists commanding the place to a small stucco house on the main
street.
Here he inquired for a gentleman named Number Seventy. The
gentleman's other name was John Recklow, and he received the
Intelligence Officer, locked the door, and seated himself behind his
desk with his back to the sunlit window, and one drawer of his desk
partly open.
Credentials being requested, and the request complied with
accompanied by a dazzling smile, there ensued a silent interval of
some length during which the young man wearing the uniform of an
American Intelligence Officer was not at all certain whether Recklow
was examining him or the papers of identification.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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