"What d'ye make o' that? I'll tell ye. They wanted to make sure
of her, but they wouldn't have thought o' dope unless the men they
expectit were due to arrive at any moment. As I see it, we've to
face a siege not by the three but by a dozen or more, and it'll no'
be long till it starts. Now, isn't it a mercy we're safe in here?"

Dickson returned to the others with a grave face.

"Where d'you think the new folk are coming from?" he asked.

Heritage answered, "From Auchenlochan, I suppose? Or perhaps
down from the hills?"

"You're wrong." And he told of Leon's mistaken confidences to him in
the darkness. "They are coming from the sea, just like the old pirates."

"The sea," Heritage repeated in a dazed voice.

"Ay, the sea. Think what that means. If they had been coming by
the roads, we could have kept track of them, even if they beat us,
and some of these laddies could have stuck to them and followed
them up till help came. It can't be such an easy job to carry a
young lady against her will along Scotch roads. But the sea's
a different matter. If they've got a fast boat they could be
out of the Firth and away beyond the law before we could wake up
a single policeman. Ay, and even if the Government took it up and
warned all the ports and ships at sea, what's to hinder them to find
a hidy-hole about Ireland--or Norway? I tell you, it's a far more
desperate business than I thought, and it'll no' do to wait on and