"Perhaps you're right. He has now an idea that his country's somehow threatened from the old main road to the south. On the face of it, the idea's absurd, and yet he makes one feel that he's not quite mistaken."
Madge indicated Rankine, who was still talking to Andrew.
"I wonder why they sent that man to a post where ability doesn't seem to be required?" she questioned.
"It's possible that Rankine's job is more important than he's allowed to admit."
He broke off, for Rankine was coming toward them, and he saw his sister's face flush prettily.
CHAPTER XI
THE SIGNAL
A light breeze was blowing when the Rowan ran into a confused tide eddy in the mouth of Wigtown Bay. There had been more wind and the swell it left was broken by the current into short, splashing seas amid which the yacht lurched uneasily. It was four o'clock in the afternoon and about two hours before high-water, and when the breeze fell very light a stream that ran north from the disturbed patch swept the Rowan up the bay.
Andrew frowned as he looked about.
"She's right off her course, but it's too deep to anchor, and the bottom's foul near the beach," he said. "We must let her drift until the ebb sets in and carries her down along the opposite shore. We ought to make Ramsey on the next flood."