child, and in a second had him inside the palisade and the bars down.
He was none too soon, for as his pursuer fell a flight of arrows broke
from the thicket, and had I shot earlier Grey had died of them. As it
was they were too late. The bowmen rushed into the glade, and five
muskets from our side took toll of them. My last vision was of leaping
yellow devils capering from among blazing trees.

Then without warning it was dark again, and from the skies fell a
deluge of rain. In a minute the burning creepers were quenched, and the
whole world was one pit of ink, with the roar as of a thousand torrents
about our ears. As the vividness of the lightning, so was the weight of
the rain. Ringan cried to us to stand to our places, for now was the
likely occasion for attack; but no human being could have fought in
such weather. Indeed, we could not hear him, and he had to stagger
round and shout his command into each several ear. The might of the
deluge almost pressed me to the earth, I carried Elspeth into her
bower, but the roof of branches was speedily beaten down, and it was no
better than a peat bog.

That overwhelming storm lasted for maybe a quarter of an hour, and then
it stopped as suddenly as it came. Inside the palisade the ground swam
like a loch, and from the hill-side came the rumour of a thousand
swollen streams. That, with the heavy drip of laden branches, made
sound enough, but after the thunder and the downpour it seemed silence
itself. Presently when I looked up I saw that the black wrack was
clearing from the sky, and through a gap there shone a watery star.

Ringan took stock of our defences, and doled out to each a portion of
sodden meat. Grey had found his breath by this time, and had got a
spare musket, for his own had been left in the woods. Elspeth had had