Part 18 (1/2)

”Where?” panted Miss Marty.

”Here . . . if you will stoop while I lift the brim. . . . Carefully, please. Now!”

Miss Marty stooped, but could not reach low enough to peer under the shako. She dropped on her knees. The Doctor was kneeling already.

He showed her how to look, and this brought their cheeks close together. . . .

”Oh!” cried Miss Marty, suddenly.

”I couldn't help it,” said the Doctor.

”And--and you have let him escape!” She buried her face in both hands, and broke into a fit of weeping.

”I don't care. . . . Yes, I do!” He caught her hands away from her face and, their hiding being denied her, she leant her brow against his shoulder. With that, his arm crept around her waist.

For a while he let her sob out her emotion. Then, taking her firmly by both wrists, he looked once into her eyes, led her to a seat upon the pebble ridge, and sat himself down beside her.

For a long while they rested there in silence, hand clasped in hand.

The uproar across the river had ceased. They heard only the splash of the small waterfall and, in its pauses, the call of bird to bird, mating amid the hazels and the oaks.

They drew apart suddenly, warned by the sound of dipping oars, the creak of thole-pins; and in a few seconds the rower hove into view, pulling up-stream as if for dear life. It was Cai Tamblyn. Catching sight of them, with a sharp exclamation he ceased rowing, held water, and bringing the boat's nose round, headed in for sh.o.r.e.

”You're wanted, quick!” he called to the Doctor. ”They sent me off in search of you.”

”Hey? What? Has there been an accident?”

Cai brought his boat alongside, glanced at Miss Marty, and lowered his voice.

”'Tis Lady Felix-Williams. These here conquerin' 'eroes of the Major's have swarmed down through the woods an' ran foul of the liquor. The Band in partikler's as drunk as Chloe, an' what with horning and banging under her ladys.h.i.+p's window, they've a-scared her before her time. She's crying out at this moment, and old Sir Felix around in his dressing-gown like Satan let loose. Talk about Millenniums!”

”Good Lord!” Dr. Hansombody caught up his haversack.

”The Millennium? I'd clean forgot about it!”

Miss Marty gazed at him with innocent inquiring eyes.

”But--but isn't this the Millennium?” she asked.

CHAPTER X.

GUNNER SOBEY TURNS LOOSE THE MILLENNIUM.

Let us return for a while to Talland Cove, and to the moment when Captain Arbuthnot's Dragoons broke ambush and charged down upon the Gallants.

Of all our company you will remember that Gunner Sobey pa.s.sed for the readiest man. This reputation he now and instantly vindicated.

For happening to be posted on the extreme left in the shadow of the western cliff, and hearing a sudden cry, ”The French! The French!”

he neither fell back with the rest of the crowd nor foolhardily resisted an enemy whose strength could not yet be measured: but leaping aside, and by great good luck finding foothold on the rocks to his left, he wriggled over the low ledge of the cliff and thence-- now clutching at the gra.s.s bents or cl.u.s.ters of the sea-pink, now digging his fingers into the turf, but always flat, or nearly flat, on his belly--he wormed his way at incredible speed up the slope, found covert behind a tall furze-bush, and surveyed for a few seconds the scene below him.

The outcries which yet continued, the splas.h.i.+ng as of men in desperate struggle at the water's edge, the hoa.r.s.e words of command, the scurrying lanterns, the gleam of a hundred tossing sabres--all these told their own tale to Gunner Sobey. He arose and ran again; nor drew breath until he had gained the top of the rough brake and flung himself over a stone wall into the dry ditch of a vast pasture field that domed itself far above him against the starry heavens.