He patted his pockets as if to make sure of something, and then looked to the priming of a pair of pistols that Cicely did not know he carried.
CHAPTER XVI.
COVER.
“CIS,” he said, anxiously, his hand at the screen of heather that closed the mouth of their retreat, “you’ve got to get over Soyland alone, and unseen. I’m going to show you a crack that will take you nearly to the top. Except at the very top, there are stones enough and heather enough to cover you, but you may have to creep. You’ll have to watch both behind and ahead, for you mustn’t be seen and you mustn’t walk into the arms of a sentry. They’re a good quarter of a mile apart—they can’t cover a hundred miles of country—you can get through easily. I’m going south a little way: listen where you’re to wait for me. You’ll cross Soyland, sighting by a large cairn you’ll see on Brotherton Head. Under it, among the heather, there’s an old square stone shaft and some birches. I’ll be there in an hour. I’ll take Jimmy with me.—Now repeat that after me.”
He could scarce hear her faint reply, and he shook her gently.
“Come now; I know you can be a brave and clever girl. I’ll tell you again....”
She repeated the instructions after him, and then he said, “Quick, a kiss ... now out you go!” He helped her through the opening and saw her immediately and swiftly take the shelter of a large boulder.
“Yes, that’s the way,” he said approvingly; “yonder’s the foot of the nick. Go quickly up it—take the risk—and then forward. Now....”
He dropped on his knees, marked the position of the bloodhounds across the valley, noted their pace, and was off.
He had packed Jimmy in the breast of his coat and secured him with the strap from which the provisions had been slung. His way lay south, round the precipitous eaves of Soyland towards the falling moorland below. He moistened his finger to the fresh wind, dodged again to a spot whence he could see the bloodhounds, glanced at the rocks above him, and began to move from rock to rock, making all the cover he might. Now and then he murmured to Jimmy, who was restless with the shaking and close confinement. “Be a man, Jimmy,” he kept saying; “across to this big boulder now—now over this heather—we must keep an eye above us, too—good! We’ll double here; never do to cross that open space, eh, Jimmy?...” He made fair progress, and presently gave an “Ah!” of satisfaction. A path of slippery bents ran up from below among the rocks and heather, as a wave washes up a steep beach; unhesitatingly he crouched and crawled towards it.
“Now hold tight for a slide, Jimmy!” he muttered.