"Ah, Halcro, my lad!" he exclaimed in his breezy way, "I see they are making you comfortable here. I hope you find it no great hardship to be cooped up here, eh? It's hardly so bad as your experience on the Falcon, I should think?"
"No, sir, and I hope it will not last so long either," I said, taking the hand he offered me.
"Little fear o' that," said he. "Mr. Duke will send you home i' the morning; but it's as well you should stay here until the evidence is complete. Bailie Thomson will not agree to your being set at liberty before the inquiry."
"And when is the inquiry to be?" I asked.
"At ten o'clock tomorrow morning," said Mr. Drever. "You see, Halcro, they're not to put you on your trial in any formal way. That could only take place at Kirkwall, or before the procurator fiscal. But the roads are all blocked wi' snow, and there's no getting to Kirkwall just now. Even the St. Magnus smugglers, and another gang that Mr. Fox arrested yestreen up at Sandwick, have to be imprisoned here until the roads are opened up. But it will be easy to prove your innocence. Thora will make that perfectly clear, as ye will see."
"Thora!" I exclaimed. "Then Thora has been found?"
"Found! certainly. She never was lost. However, ye'll hear all about that matter again. Just leave it all to me, Halcro, and dinna be downcast about biding here another night. But I must away now. Good e'en to ye!"
"Good e'en, sir!"
The good man was leaving me abruptly, when at the door he turned back.
"Oh, Halcro!" said he, as though suddenly remembering something, "they tell me that your viking's stone has been amissing. Have ye heard anything of it yet?"