“Ye’ll be better inside, laddie,” she whispered, flinging ceremony to the winds in the importance of the moment. “A’m thinking there’s that going forward we’ll be nae best pleased to see.”
Dick sprang up the steps in a second.
“What’s the row, Elsie?” he said.
“Hoot, mon, dinna speak that loud. A’ hadn’t done washing up in the kitchen, and when A’ turrned there was a black heathen sauvage a-speerin’ in at the window under the blind.”
“We’ll soon settle him,” said Dick, making a move to start upon that errand. But a strong—a very strong—detaining hand was upon his arm.
“Ye’ll not leave the inside o’ this hoose. Come in, laddie, and look for yeerself. It’s from inside ye’re going to tak care o’ Miss Hazel, not from without, all stickit with the murdering spears of black sauvages.”
She drew him inside by main force, and noiselessly closed the door, turning the key in the lock.
“Get ye the guns now,” she said. “It’s at the back they’ll be wanted.”
In this brief but very stirring experience, Dick Selmes had learned the value of promptitude. In a minute he had joined Elsie in the kitchen. He was loaded with a double shot-gun, and combined rifle and smooth-bore, and a revolver. Going into an adjacent room where there was no light, he lifted a corner of the blind and peered forth.
The moon had not quite risen, but it was light enough to see that in the open space between the house and the quince hedge which railed off the garden, several dark forms were standing. They were some fifty yards off, and seemed to be making signs to others behind, probably hidden in the deep shade of the hedge. It was also light enough to make out that, tied round leg and arm, they wore tufts of cow-hair, and once the peculiar rattle of assegai hafts, hardly audible, vibrated to the horrified gazer’s listening ear.