The Adventure League

CHAP.
I.	[WHAT HAPPENED IN ERRICHA]
II.	['THE PIRATES' DEN']
III.	[A SURPRISE]
IV.	[THE COMPACT]
V.	[SUSPENSE]
VI.	[A DISCOVERY]
VII.	[THE SIEGE]
VIII.	[A CRUISE IN THE 'HEROIC']
IX.	[DISAPPOINTMENT]
X.	[IN WHICH ALLAN IS VERY WISE]
XI.	[A NEAR SHAVE]
XII.	[SURROUNDED]
XIII.	[ANDREW MACPETERS]
XIV.	[CAUGHT]
XV.	[HAMISH TO THE RESCUE]

CHAPTER I

WHAT HAPPENED IN ERRICHA.

It was very early on a bright summer morning. Rocks and heather and green fields lay bathed in sunshine; and round the shores of a small island on the west coast of Scotland the sea was dancing and splashing, while in the distance the Highland hills raised their bare crests towards a cloudless sky.

The sun had not long risen, and it seemed as though no one could be stirring at this early hour; yet there was an unusual commotion among the birds nesting on the ledges of a high cliff. The funny little puffins, with their red, parrot-like bills, were peering anxiously out of the crevices; while the curious little auks, standing erect in rows like black and white mannikins, were exceedingly perturbed; and the kittiwakes flew screaming from the rocky shelves, joining their voices to the hoarser cries of the guillemots and the booming of the waves among walls and pillars of rock.

The cause of the birds' agitation was not far to seek. Some figures, looking very small upon the huge cliff, were crawling on their hands and knees upon the ledges, gathering eggs. Two were boys; and the red cap and serge frock of another proclaimed her to be a girl. About fifty feet below, with nothing between him and the waves which looked small in the distance, a lad hung suspended by a rope, while the birds circled and screamed around him.