Chapter 3

What had the fellow’s
name been? Something short? Gale, or Hare? No, even Logan’s trained
memory could not recall the details. Yet the face of the military
gentleman at the hotel and in the corridor, Logan felt, was curiously
like the nasty face he half-recollected from the smudgy newspaper
photograph. Had there been espionage hinted at the military hearings?
The man had been a bad lot in many ways. But Logan couldn’t feel quite
sure he had not fancied the resemblance.

By Ben Cruachan, through the Pass of Brander; across the river at
Bridge of Awe; then Connel Ferry. The mountains loomed nobly as the
train approached the coast. The military gentleman did not return. A
few minutes more, and the train swung into the resort and fishing-port
of Oban, on the Firth of Lorn. Now the Western Isles were in plain
sight--Kerrera, at least, right opposite Oban. Logan could see its
treeless bulk from the window of his hotel. Of the military gentleman,
no trace. Logan looked for him in the railway station, but he must have
got off hurriedly from a forward coach and have gone into the town. Not
that Logan much desired to see the military gentleman again.

3

“You might inquire at the North Pier, Mr. Logan,” said the Reverend
Andrew Crawford, “but I do not believe any fisherman will undertake
to set you ashore in Carnglass. All the boats will be gone from the
harbour until sunset: the storm kept them in port for three days,
and they won’t wish to waste another day in carrying a passenger to
Carnglass.”

The Reverend Andrew Crawford, minister of St. Ninian’s Church, was a
knowledgeable man. The people at the Station Hotel had sent Logan to
him, not knowing themselves how he might get to Carnglass. Mr. Crawford
had set foot in most of the Outer Isles that still were inhabited. Now
he and Logan stood at the door of the manse, looking down the hill to
Oban town and the piers, with the dim gray Hebrides far beyond the blue
sea.

“I’d pay whatever they might ask,” Logan told him.

“It’s not wholly a matter of _l.s.d._, Mr. Logan. The swell round
Carnglass and Daldour always is heavy. I had difficulty in getting
ashore in Daldour, the day I visited, and I never have seen Carnglass,
except from Daldour or a boat. Lady MacAskival does not let even the
minister or the priest ashore. She has her own style of religion.
And these trawlers from the mainland aren’t popular with the island
folk. Once the keepers fired at an Oban boat that tried to put into
Askival harbour; nor are the men in Daldour much more hospitable. No, I
think you’d best take MacBrayne’s steamer to Loch Boisdale: the South
Uist fishermen know the Carnglass waters. The reefs off Carnglass are
murderous.”

“Who lives in Daldour, Mr. Crawford?”

“There is but one name in Daldour--MacAskival. An inbred folk. In
Daldour there is a little machair--that’s the sandy land of the
Island--and the island people fertilize it with seaweed, and grow
potatoes. Also they gather seaweed and sell it; in the season, a
drifter puts close into shore, and the Daldour men bring out the
seaweed in their lobster-boats and load it aboard, and it is sold on
the mainland. On the day I visited Daldour, all the folk were at the
beach with their carts, running straight into the surf to gather the
tangle. Theirs is a poor life. The Daldour women weave a few decent
rugs and sweaters. They speak a strange Gaelic, with some Norse words
in it. For a month, one of our missionaries lived in Daldour, but he
was half daft when he left. ‘Mr. Crawford, I have served my time among
the Mau Mau,’ he said to me. And that though he was a Highlander and a
Gaelic speaker.”

“Can you tell me anything about Lady MacAskival, Mr. Crawford?” Logan
asked. But--after a slight discreet pause--Mr. Crawford could not.
Logan, leaving him, went down to the North Pier to make inquiries after
any boat that might carry him to Carnglass.

He had no luck. It would have to be MacBrayne’s steamer to Loch
Boisdale in the morning, he thought, for already it was late afternoon.
If the sea should be calm tomorrow, even a big motor-launch ought to be
able to carry him from South Uist to Carnglass. After a stroll along
the esplanade to the cathedral, Logan went back to his hotel at the
other end of the town and had dinner. The trawlers were in the harbor
now, unloading their catch upon the quay. But the fishermen were too
busy to be bothered with eccentric Americans that wanted passage to
Ultima Thule, Logan suspected. A light rain was coming down. Despite
that, after dinner Logan put his oilskin cape over his shoulders, took
up his stock, and--for lack of anything better to do--climbed the hill
behind the town.

At the summit there was a strange building, Logan had noticed as soon
as he had come out of Oban railway station: a circular roofless affair,
like a ruined temple. This, according to the hotel people, was called
McCaig’s Folly, and had been built long ago as an observation-tower,
but never finished. Now, in the gloaming, Logan found himself close
beside the Folly. The season being too early for tourists at Oban,
the area round the Folly was deserted, so that Logan walked alone in
the drizzle, thinking idly of the Old House of Fear and old Duncan
MacAskival and his own solitary and work-laden life. A scrap from Scott
came into his head:

“Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
To all the sensual world proclaim
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.”

Was that the way it went? Even leading his battalion, Logan never
had known that crowded hour. And as he thought of how some men are
drunken with drink, and others drunken with work, he heard steps in the
darkness behind him.

Looking over his shoulder, Logan made out a familiar figure, a few
paces distant: the military gentleman. When Logan slackened pace, the
military gentleman hesitated for a moment, and then strode on toward
him. “Captain Gare!” the military gentleman called out, by way of
introduction.

“Good evening, sir,” Logan said. Captain Gare, coming very close up to
him with a swagger of sorts, looked down from his stork-height upon
Logan. Flickering from side to side, the disconcertingly mobile little
black bird-eyes never paused for more than a fraction of a second to
meet Logan’s stare. The man struck his long stick against his own
trousers-leg. He opened his mouth, paused, gripped his stick more
firmly, and then spoke in a reedy educated voice.

“Look here,” said Captain Gare. “I say--I.... That is, cigarettes--yes,
cigarettes....” There was an aroma of whiskey about Captain Gare,
but Logan did not think he was drunk. Certainly Gare was exceedingly
nervous, and he seemed disposed toward bullying.

“I’m sorry,” Logan told him mildly, “but I don’t have any cigarettes
about me.”

“No, no.” Captain Gare, scowling, paused afresh, perhaps trying to
take a new tack. “No, I don’t require cigarettes, not really. I don’t
smoke--nor drink, either. I say: you’re an American, are you not?”

“Why should you think so, sir?”

“Don’t take offense,” said Captain Gare. “Are you ashamed of being an
American? I’m not a chap people can take liberties with. You’re an
American chap, I know. Your name is Logan.”

“I saw you at Todd’s Hotel,” Logan observed.

“Did you? Did you really? I travel a great deal, Mr. Logan: private
means, you know. Yes, that’s it: I saw your name in the hotel register,
and thought we might have something in common.”

“What might we have in common, Captain Gare?” Logan spoke evenly.
Captain Gare swept his bird-eyes across Logan’s face again, seeming
to gain heart. He slapped the stick against his leg, below the short
mackintosh he wore.

“I say--don’t know India, I suppose? Never tried pig-sticking? No, I
suppose not; not you American chaps. True sport, you know. I was rather
good.” He towered belligerently above Logan. “There’s nothing like
steel. See here.” Captain Gare tugged at the head of his stick, and it
came away from the wood. It was a sword-stick, two or three inches of
blade showing above the cane. Logan had an amusing momentary vision of
a fencing-match there in the rain, complete with cries of “touché!”
Captain Gare, glowering upon him, rammed the blade back into its
stick-scabbard.

“I take it that you know the world, Captain Gare,” Logan said, smiling
slightly.

“Rather better than you do, I fancy, Logan.” It was clear that Captain
Gare now felt himself master of the situation. “I say, we needn’t beat
about the bush, eh? I’m told you’ve been at the pier inquiring after
passage to Carnglass.”

“You’re an astute man, Captain Gare.”

“That’s as it may be.” Captain Gare’s swollen features bent toward
Logan. “Look here: it’s quite pointless for you to go to Carnglass, you
know--quite. I suppose you’re a solicitor-chap, are you not?”

“That’s as it may be,” said Logan. “My father and grandfather were
Writers to the Signet. You have an interest in Carnglass, Mr.--that is,
Captain--Gare?”

“One of my friends has an interest there, sir. He knows Lady MacAskival
very well. Handles her affairs, as a matter of fact. Saves her
annoyance. She never welcomes callers, you understand.”

“I’m afraid my business is with Lady MacAskival herself.”

Captain Gare edged still closer. “Lady MacAskival is not competent to
transact business, Mr. Logan. I mean to say that she’s infirm. Quite
old, you know. No taste for American trippers.”

“She has been in correspondence with my principal.”

“Nonsense!” Captain Gare brandished his stick. “Mean to say, that’s
rubbish, you know. Lady MacAskival never writes. Infirm, a very elderly
party. Come, now, Logan: I dare say you’ve gone to moderate expense in
this fool’s errand. You’ll never see Carnglass. My friend is a liberal
man, and very close to Lady MacAskival. Money’s little object to him or
her. Suppose, now, on their behalf, I give you three hundred pounds, if
you like? Simply by way of reimbursement, we may put it, Logan. Fair
enough, eh? And then back to Brooklyn with you, eh?”

“You have the money in your pocket?” Logan inquired.

“Of course not.” Captain Gare gave him a supercilious smile. “A man
doesn’t carry such sums on his person, you know. Come back into town
with me, like a good chap, and I’ll write a cheque in your favor.”

“I do happen to carry such sums on my person, Captain Gare,” Logan told
him.

The military gentleman’s little eyes widened and flickered. His left
hand stole nervously along the sword-stick. “Not really? Hundreds of
pounds in notes in your pocket? I say....”

“Not in notes, Captain Gare: in traveller’s cheques.” Here Captain Gare
sighed slightly, and his grip on the stick slackened. “Now could you be
interested, Captain Gare, in some such sum as six hundred pounds?”

“Six hundred pounds?” Captain Gare drew a sudden breath. “Really, my
dear fellow, are you suggesting that you might pay me six hundred
pounds? Whatever for?”

“For certain information.”

“What manner of information, my dear sir?” Captain Gare turned
slightly, there in the dark, as if to make sure no one was at hand.

“For instance,” Logan said, “detailed information concerning the past,
present, and future of Jackman.”

That bow, drawn at a venture, sent its arrow home. On Gare’s unpleasant
face the mottled veins seemed to swell; the man stepped back. “Who the
devil are you?” cried Captain Gare, with a quaver in the reedy voice.

“I take it that you know now what I am,” said Logan, still quietly.
“Whatever made you think I might accept money?”

“I beg your pardon, sir; really, I ...” Captain Gare was stumbling over
his words. “That is, you did not seem precisely an American. All a
pose, eh? I say, you don’t mean that you’re ... that I’m....”

“If you tell me about Jackman,” Logan went on, “we need say no more of
all this, so far as you are concerned. We already know a great deal
about Dr. Jackman, of course, but conceivably you might add something
or other. You’re the fellow who was cashiered, I take it. We know
enough about you.”

“I swear it was a miscarriage of justice, Mr. Logan--or whatever your
name is, sir. I mean that affair in Madras.” Gare was almost panting.
“But Jackman--no, really, I can’t say anything, not for six thousand
pounds. My life wouldn’t--but you know that quite as well as I do.”

The swollen face had gone deathly pale. Even had he been able to probe
deeper without giving away his game, Logan reflected, this man would
have been too frightened to be of any real help. It had been a good
random thrust, that mention of Jackman, whoever Jackman might be.

“Very well, Gare,” Logan said. “If you don’t choose to clear yourself,
that’s not my concern. Very likely you’d be of no use to us. We’ll
have Dowie and Anderson any hour now.” Gare shivered. That shot, too,
had gone home. “As for you, Gare, you understand that if you don’t
sever all connection with this business, we’ll see that you’re taken
into custody? Perhaps the Continent would be a safer place for you at
present. And throw away that silly sword-stick: you couldn’t frighten
babies with it.” Logan snatched the thing from Gare’s hand and flung
it toward the lip of the hill; the steel flashed in the moonlight, and
then blade and stick were lost in the gorse. “Be off, now; I’ve tired
of you.”

Gare, backing further away, muttered pitifully, “Then you’re.... Then
I’m not under...?” Logan gestured impatiently toward the town below.

“You can go to the devil, Gare.”

Captain Gare turned with clumsy haste, all his swagger gone, and
scuttled heavily down the path toward town; after he had gone a few
paces in the dark, Logan thought he heard him break into a run. Yes, it
had been a thoroughly satisfying random shot. He did not think he would
see Captain Gare again.

Yet whoever thought it worthwhile to offer Logan three hundred pounds
to steer clear of Carnglass? Gare had bungled the business badly; he
must have been acting without instruction from his principal, Logan
thought--whoever that principal might be. Dowie? Or Lagg? Or this
fellow Jackman? There were depths in this business, surely, unplumbed
by old Duncan MacAskival. Trying to piece the thing together, Logan
walked slowly back to the Station Hotel. There the night porter gave
him tea and biscuits, and afterwards Logan went up to his rather chilly
high-ceilinged room, and stared at the plaster cornice for half an hour
before he went to sleep. But he could form no clear picture of what he
had begun to call to himself the Carnglass Case.

* * * * *

As he dressed, next morning, Logan saw from his window the steamer
“Lochness” at the pier: it would take him to Loch Boisdale, and
he hurried into his clothes and gulped down tea at 5:45. This was
Wednesday, his third morning in Scotland. Thus far, only frustration:
and yet the sort of frustration which roused Logan’s energies. To
judge from the impromptu and ineffectual measures that Dowie and Gare
had adopted, he was dealing only with an ill-organized and eccentric
opposition--though with adversaries sufficiently unscrupulous. And it
seemed to be an ill-informed opposition. Either that, or else Dowie and
Gare were out of touch with the real intelligence at work, for some
reason, supposing that they _had_ principals for whom they were acting.
Certainly neither of those two had seemed quite the man to concoct a
scheme to keep an American from his prospective purchase of Carnglass.
If there were a principal, would he be in the island? Lagg, the factor?
The storm of two days ago might have kept the people in Carnglass from
communicating with the mainland; but presumably messages now could be
sent and received by boat. Whatever messages might be sent, it scarcely
was possible that he should receive in Carnglass the sort of rude
welcome he had got in Mutto’s Wynd. Even if Carnglass was Ultima Thule,
still it was part of Britain, the most law-abiding of nations; and
there would be Lady MacAskival for surety.

At six o’clock the “Lochness” steamed away from the pier toward the
Sound of Mull. They crossed the Firth of Lorne; and then, to the south,
they skirted the great rocky mass of Mull, while the wild shores of
Morven frowned upon them from the north. Several islanders were among
the passengers, and for the first time in years Logan heard the Gaelic
spoken naturally, that beautiful singing Gaelic of the Hebrides. It
went with the cliffs, the sea-rocks, the ruined strongholds of Mull and
Morven, the damp air, the whitewashed lonely cottages by the deep and
smoothly sinister sea.

As the hours passed, the steamer put into Tobermory, and later touched
at the flat islands of Col and Tiree. It crossed the broad rough waters
of the Little Minch, with the romantic line of the Outer Isles before
them, and the round bulk of Barra drawing closer. After Castlebay, in
Barra, the “Lochness” steamed north past Eriskay, and into the splendid
dark anchorage of Loch Boisdale, in South Uist, that sprawling low
island of peat.

It was nearly midnight now. Going ashore, Logan got himself a room at
the homely, cordial inn above the harbor. There was a schoolmaster
in Loch Boisdale village, the hotelkeeper said, who might know of a
drifter that could put Logan ashore in Carnglass.

Once more alone in a rented room with only conjectures for company,
Hugh Logan settled himself in bed and took up that battered pamphlet by
the Reverend Samuel Balmullo. Mr. Balmullo’s taste certainly had run to
old bones. Here was a tidbit:

“Even in the fierce chronicles of the Western Isles, the chieftains
of MacAskival are distinguished by a repute for deeds of blood and
passion exceedingly disproportionate to the wealth and power of their
sept. In the last century, upon the removal of the plenishing of the
Old House to the New House of Fear, there were discovered in a curious
pit or oubliette in the crypts the skeletal remains of a human being,
still bearing the marks of violence. This pit long had been put to the
office of a brine-tub, and it is supposed, accordingly, that the bones
had lain hid at the bottom for a great while, perhaps some centuries.
By any person inured to the sorry superstitions of the people of
Carnglass, it might have been anticipated--as, indeed, it befell--that
the vulgar peasantry, upon the exhibition of these sad relics of
mortality, would allege the bones--some of which were curiously injured
or deformed--to be those of a Firgower, or Man-Goat. A legend less
incredible, however, relates that the skeleton is that of an illicit
lover of a lady of MacAskival, seized by stealth at his abode in North
Uist, transported to Carnglass, subjected to indescribable torments,
and at length drowned in the brine of the oubliette. What the Duke
of Clarence suffered in a butt of Malmsey, some obscure chieftain of
the barbarous Hebrides, about the same period of antiquity, may have
endured in a darksome pit filled to its brink with pickled herring.”

At the close of this charming paragraph, Logan settled himself to sleep.

In the morning, on his way to seek out the schoolmaster who might
help him to a passage to Carnglass, Logan was surprised to find Loch
Boisdale and its neighborhood bursting with activity. Navvies were
unloading enormous crates from a freighter; two new bulldozers rumbled
down the road toward the interior of the island; recently-built huts of
corrugated iron, an age away from the primitive thatched Uist cottages
of field-stone that stood scattered over the oozy plain, shouldered one
another near the pier. The hotelkeeper had said briefly that something
important, in a military way, was in progress in the heart of South
Uist. A range for guided missiles, perhaps; and perhaps something even
newer. Idle policemen, the hotelkeeper had said, lounged about the
approaches to the construction-area. He did not like it. It would spoil
the snipe-shooting, and also evict honest families from their crofts.
“Those men in London are spoiling the best places and the best people.”

About the middle of the morning, Logan plodded up the soggy road to the
schoolhouse. The sky was very gray again, and a fairly heavy rain was
falling; but even the guidebook confessed that the climate of South
Uist was the worst in Britain. MacLean, the rawboned schoolmaster,
would do what he could to assist the gentleman. Leaving the schoolroom
in charge of a senior boy, he went back with Logan toward the harbor.
Yes, Mr. MacLean knew the master of a drifter, now in Loch Boisdale,
who might conceivably engage to land Mr. Logan in Carnglass. This
fisherman, though akin to the schoolmaster, was a very remote cousin,
mind, and in need of money, to pay a fine. A fine for what? For
poaching. Logan wanted to know what sort of poaching--fishing in
forbidden waters?

“No,” said MacLean, shortly, “sheep. Judge not that ye be not judged.
My cousin Colin knows all the shore of all the lonely islands, and on
some of the islands there are sheep, and deer. Whatever Colin is or is
not, there is no better pilot in all the Outer Isles.”

Although Colin’s boat was in the harbor, the man himself was not in
sight when the schoolmaster and Logan got down to the pier. “He will be
drinking somewhere,” the schoolmaster said. “But here are some people
to interest you: people from Daldour.”

Seated on the clammy pier, eating bread and butter in the drizzle,
were three men in rough island dress and rubber boots--or, rather, two
men and a bright-eyed boy. All three had about them a twilight look.
Their bodies were lean, their cheeks were hollow, their teeth protruded
slightly; a Lowlander might have said that they were not canny.

They seemed so much alike that, but for differences in age, they might
have been triplets. “MacAskivals,” the schoolmaster murmured. “A dying
breed. In Daldour, now, most are old bachelors and old maids; they have
seen too much of one another, and will not marry. The last of an old
song. That big lobster boat by the pier is theirs; the MacAskivals have
but a naked beach at Daldour. I will speak the Gaelic to them, for they
will speak no English, although this boy knows the English well enough.
Among themselves, Mr. Logan, they speak a dialect as strange to me as
the Gaelic is to you.”

Except for the boy’s bright glance, the three MacAskivals had given
no sign of recognition as the schoolmaster and Logan approached. Now,
as Mr. MacLean spoke to the three in Gaelic, there came very faint
shy smiles to all three narrow faces; the two men nodded, and the boy
replied in the slow flowing Gaelic. Presently, in a cautious tone, the
schoolmaster seemed to say something significant. The boy turned to the
elder of the two men, who spoke curtly, and the boy translated for him
to the schoolmaster. As he finished speaking, over the boy’s eyes came
a kind of glaze, and the two men turned again to munching bread and
butter, as if they had forgotten the existence of everyone else.

“I asked them,” the schoolmaster told Logan, “whether they would take
you with them to Daldour, and then to Carnglass. They are in Loch
Boisdale for this day only, to buy what few things they do buy, from
month to month. They said they would not take you to Carnglass; it is
not a good place for a man to go.”

“Not for fifty pounds?” Logan asked.

“For no price, I believe. But if money speaks, my cousin Colin is the
man for you. And here he comes.” A squat man was sauntering along the
pier. “Colin is not overly civil, and he is fond of the drink; but
he knows the waters and the coasts.” They turned away from the three
silent MacAskivals and walked to meet the fisherman-poacher.

What is uncommon among the people of the Isles, Colin MacLean seemed
surly. He did not acknowledge the schoolmaster’s introduction of Logan.
“Colin,” said the schoolmaster, “Mr. Logan asks you to set him ashore
in Carnglass. I will leave you to make your bargain.” Logan shook his
hand, and the schoolmaster strode up the hill.

Colin MacLean gave Logan a long hard look from under the brim of his
sou’wester. “Carnglass, is it?” The only polish about Colin was his
careful English speech, no doubt learned from the British Broadcasting
Company, and uttered with a musical Gaelic intonation. Colin MacLean
spat upon the pier. “Carnglass: and so Lagg and his keepers would shoot
holes in my boat. You may go to hell, Mr. Logan.”

Logan drew from his billfold ten big colorful notes of the Royal Bank
of Scotland: five-pound notes. “This is yours, Mr. MacLean,” he said,
“if you’ll set me ashore anywhere in Carnglass. It needn’t be Askival
harbor. Is there no other spot where a boat might put in?”

Colin stared at the notes. “There is a place, Dalcruach, in the east,
where at high tide a boat--a small boat--can pass over the reefs, if
the sea is calm. All the rest is cliff. But I would not risk my drifter
among the rocks. You would need to row over the reefs alone. Here: I
have an old dinghy. For twenty pounds more, I would sell it to you. I
would bring you as close to Dalcruach as I could, and then you would
take the dinghy and fend for yourself, Mr. Logan. Are you a seaman?”

“I’ve rowed before,” Logan said. “Here’s another twenty pounds for the
dinghy.”

“The swell about Carnglass is a fearful thing,” Colin went on, shaking
his heavy head in doubt, “and the reefs are like knives. Now would you
sign a paper to say that Colin MacLean would be in no way responsible
for the possible drowning of Mr. Hugh Logan?”

“I would,” Logan answered. “Take me aboard your drifter, and I’ll write
it now.”

Colin tucked the five-pound notes into his pocket. “Midnight, Mr.
Logan: come aboard at midnight, and we will make for Carnglass. It is
not good to be seen landing in Carnglass; there might be a keeper with
a rifle, even at Dalcruach. I will land you at Dalcruach early in the
morning, with the tide in flood, the weather permitting. And then I
wash my hands of it.”

That afternoon, Logan borrowed from the hotelkeeper an old knapsack,
into which he put some socks and underclothing, a shirt, sandwiches and
chocolate, and a thermos of coffee. He would leave his suitcase at the
hotel. He put on heavy waterproof boots and an old cap, and wore his
oilskin and carried his stick. And he was ready long before midnight.

Colin MacLean, with two less dour South Uist men who made up his crew,
received him solemnly aboard the drifter. They puffed out of Loch
Boisdale into the sea, with only two lights showing; and after that,
for hours, Logan could perceive nothing but the obscurity of the night
sky, clouds shutting out moon and stars. Before dawn, they stopped
the engine, and Logan thought he could make out, vaguely, an enormous
land-mass to the south. The drifter rolled heavily in a menacing swell;
and there came the noise of that swell breaking upon rocks. “I will
give you back your money for this dinghy,” said Colin, with a sour
grin, “if you have changed your mind.”

“Let me into the dinghy,” Logan told him, “and I’ll cast off.”

“The more fool you,” Colin growled. They picked their way over the
uneasy little deck to the stern, where the dinghy was in tow. MacLean
let down a rope ladder into the little boat; he held an electric torch
to light Logan’s descent. “Here,” said Colin, in a last-minute access
of charity, “I will make you a present of the torch, Mr. Logan. And
here is something else for you.” Colin took a bottle of whiskey from
a jacket-pocket and thrust it into Logan’s canvas pack. “You will be
wetted in beaching the boat, and the sea is cold. Row straight for the
cliff ahead. The tide will carry you over the reef, but you must watch
sharp for the needle-rocks. At Dalcruach clachan there is a keeper’s
cottage, and perhaps you can dry yourself there.” Under his breath,
Colin muttered something like “God help you.”

Then Logan cast off and took the dinghy’s oars. The drifter receded
into the night.

For a moment, breaking through the pall of cloud, the moon showed him
the cliff-head above Dalcruach. What with oars, tide, and a slight
breeze at his back, Logan swept in toward Carnglass, the Heap of Gray
Stones.

4

At Logan’s back, as he rode the crest of that grim darkling swell, the
forlorn hope of sunrise was fighting upward in the sky. By that pallid
light, diffused through a gray mist, he saw that he was in perilous
waters.