Chapter Six. The Adventure of the Bald Archaeologist

The Thirty-Nine Steps

by John Buchan

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't been 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 teeth
and 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 opposite me
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.