Dickson had now wriggled into a sitting position and had clasped
his hands above his aching head.

"I thought you were a Russian, name of Paul," he groaned.

"Paul! Paul who?"

"Just Paul. A Bolshevik and an awful bad lot."

Dickson could not see the change which his words wrought in
the other's face. He found himself picked up in strong arms and
carried to a bog-pool where his battered face was carefully washed,
his throbbing brows laved, and a wet handkerchief bound over them.
Then he was given brandy in the socket of a flask, which eased
his nausea. The cyclist ran his bicycle to the roadside, and
found a seat for Dickson behind the turf-dyke of the old bucht.

"Now you are going to tell me everything," he said. "If the Paul
who is your enemy is the Paul I think him, then we are allies."

But Dickson did not need this assurance. His mind had suddenly
received a revelation. The Princess had expected an enemy,
but also a friend. Might not this be the long-awaited friend,
for whose sake she was rooted to Huntingtower with all its terrors?

"Are you sure your name's no' Alexis?" he asked.

"In my own country I was called Alexis Nicolaevitch, for I am a Russian.
But for some years I have made my home with your folk, and I call myself