“I’m all the better pleased to hear you say it,” said Red John, “because your taunt about my botched life rankled.”
“I did you less than justice; one should never judge a life till the end of it.”
Down the rock face the two men lowered her to the cave, where she let herself free of the rope, with a shake of it for her signal.
“Hurry, lad,” said Red John, looking into the glen; and Alan went over the edge, and down, foot and hand, eager enough to join Ealasaid.
The torn mists blew farther down the glen, the wind took a curve round Sgornoch-mor, and eye and ear told Red John that a band of the Athol men were close on him. He saw their bonnets on the slope, and heard them roar when they saw him beside the haw-tree.
“My sorrow!” said he, “here’s Red John at the end of his tether! The pair below need be none the worse nor the wiser, for who’s to get at them with the rope gone?”
He lifted the rope a little to make sure that Alan was off it, then slashed at it with his dirk till he cut it from the tree.
“Here’s a cunning and notable end to the botched life,” said the boon companion to himself, turning, with the dagger still in his hand, to face the Athol men.
And the rope in heavy coils fell past the cave mouth to the deep below.
THE END.