Then we fell to making our plans. It would not do for us to be seen leaving the Craig by day, for our position was plainly in view of keen eyes along all the Girvan shore and at Chapeldonnan or Girvanmains as well. And worse enemies than these might put out a dozen boats to intercept us, or simply lie in wait to take us as we landed. Besides, all this day and part of the night there befel a storm which lashed the waves to white foam about our abode. With more than a woman’s ordinary forethought in adventure, Nell had left her boat in a cove to the right of the landing-place. And indeed I, that somewhat prided myself upon my wisdom, had not taken as great precautions myself—which, among other things, was the cause of our present position on the Craig. So we three spent all the day in cheerful talk, thinking that so soon as we could find Marjorie, we should come to the end of our perplexities, and have the guilty in our power. But in this we spoke without knowledge of the manifold shifts and stratagems of our arch enemy. *CHAPTER XXXVIII* *A RESCUE FROM THE SEA* While we thus waited and planned, Nell told us how that she had remained at Culzean till there seemed no more hope of Marjorie’s coming. Then there arrived a lass of the Cochranes who had been Marjorie’s tiring maid at Auchendrayne. From her Nell learned how, after a fierce and bitter scene with the elder Mure, Marjorie had fled from Auchendrayne none knew whither, escaping all their toils and passing their inner and outer guard under silence of night. Then so soon as she had heard this, fearing all evil to her sister, Nell set out to find me—believing that, in the absence of any hope of help from her brothers, I might aid her to find her sister and to clear some of the ever deepening mysteries. It was the dusk of an evening, sweet and debonnair, when we left the castle which had been so long our home, and descended the perilous steeps to the foot of Ailsa. Here we found Nell’s boat safe in its cove, and immediately we pushed out, having placed therein all our weapons and belongings. Nell sat in the stern, and the Dominie and I took the oars. The storm of the night and morning had abated, and there was now no more than an oily swell upon the water.