He slipped into the undergrowth, while we waited in that dark, lonesome place. Even Ringan was sober now.
Elspeth asked in a low voice what was wrong, and I told her that the
Indian was uncertain of the best road.
"Best road!" she laughed. "Then pray show me what you call the worst."
Ringan grinned at me ruefully. "Where do you wish yourself at this moment, Andrew?"
"On the top of this damned mountain," I grunted.
"Not for me," he said. "Give me the Dry Tortugas, on a moonlight night when the breaming fires burn along the shore, and the lads are singing 'Spanish Ladies.' Or, better still, the little isle of St. John the Baptist, with the fine yellow sands for careening, and Mother Daria brewing bobadillo and the trades blowing fresh in the tops of the palms. This land is a gloomy sort of business. Give me the bright, changeful sea."
"And I," said Elspeth, "would be threading rowan berries for a necklace in the heather of Medwyn Glen. It must be about four o'clock of a midsummer afternoon and a cloudless sky, except for white streamers over Tinto. Ah, my own kind countryside!"
Ringan's face changed.
"You are right, my lady. No Tortugas or Spanish isles for Ninian Campbell. Give him the steeps of Glenorchy on an October morn when the deer have begun to bell. My sorrow, but we are far enough from our desires—all but Andrew, who is a prosaic soul. And here comes Shalah with ugly news!"
The Indian spoke rapidly to me. "The woods are full of men. I do not think we are discovered, but we cannot stay here. Our one hope is to gain the cover of the mist. There is an open space beyond this thicket, and we must ride our swiftest. Quick, brother."