“Yes!” the man answered.
“This is where I take my morning bath,” Macheson said. “You will see that though you can scramble down and dive in, it is too precipitous to get out. Therefore, I have fixed up a rope on the other side—it goes through those bushes, and is attached to the trunk of a tree beneath the bracken. If you swim across, you can pull yourself out of the water and hide just above the water in the bushes. There is just a chance that you may escape observation.”
Already he was on his way down, but Macheson stopped him.
“I shall leave a suit of dry clothes in the shelter,” he said. “If they should give up the chase you are welcome to them. Now you had better dive. They are in the spinney.”
The man went in, after the fashion of a practised diver. Macheson turned round and retraced his steps towards his temporary dwelling-house.
CHAPTER XII
RETREAT
Out in the lane a motley little group of men were standing. Stephen Hurd was in the act of springing off his brown cob. The dogs were already in the shelter.