"Well, you can hand it over to me, if you like. But it oughtn't to
come to shooting, if it's only the three of them. The eight of us
should be able to manage three and one of them lame. If the others
turn up--well, God help us all! But we've got to make sure of one
thing, that no one lays hands on the Princess so long as there's one
of us left alive to hit out."

"Ye needn't be feared for that," said Dougal. There was no light
in the room, but Dickson was certain that the morose face of the
Chieftain was lit with unholy joy.

"Then off with you. Mr. McCunn and I will explain matters to the ladies."

When they were alone, Heritage's voice took a different key.
"We're in for it, Dogson, old man. There's no doubt these three
scoundrels expect reinforcements at any moment, and with them
will be one who is the devil incarnate. He's the only thing on earth
that that brave girl fears. It seems he is in love with her and
has pestered her for years. She hated the sight of him, but he
wouldn't take no, and being a powerful man--rich and well-born and
all the rest of it--she had a desperate time. I gather he was pretty
high in favour with the old Court. Then when the Bolsheviks started
he went over to them, like plenty of other grandees, and now he's
one of their chief brains--none of your callow revolutionaries,
but a man of the world, a kind of genius, she says, who can hold
his own anywhere. She believes him to be in this country, and
only waiting the right moment to turn up. Oh, it sounds ridiculous,
I know, in Britain in the twentieth century, but I learned in the war
that civilization anywhere is a very thin crust. There are a hundred