For a moment, darkness. Then the spirits met the lamp's smouldering wick and blazed into flame.
By the sudden light David saw his father on the far side the table, pointing with crooked forefinger. By his side Red Wull was standing alert, hackles up, yellow fangs bared, eyes lurid; and, at his feet, the wee brown mouse lay still and lifeless.
“Oot o' ma hoose! Back to Kenmuir! Back to yer ——” The unpardonable word, unmistakable, hovered for a second on his lips like some foul bubble, and never burst.
“No mither this time!” panted David, racing round the table.
“Wullie!”
The Terror leapt to the attack; but David overturned the table as he ran, the blunderbuss crashing to the floor; it fell, opposing a momentary barrier in the dog's path.
“Stan' off, ye—!” screeched the little man, seizing a chair in both hands; “stan' off, or I'll brain ye!”
But David was on him.
“Wullie, Wullie, to me!”
Again the Terror came with a roar like the sea. But David, with a mighty kick catching him full on the jaw, repelled the attack.