"Yes, Kay."
"You are not scared, are you?"
"Yes; but I'm all right."
He said with quiet bitterness: "It's too late to say what a fool I am. Their camouflage took me in; that's all—"
He fired again; a rattling volley came storming among the rocks.
"We're all right here," he said tersely. But in his heart he was terrified, for he had only the cartridges in his clips.
Presently he motioned her to bend over very low. Then, taking her hand, he guided her along an ascending gulley, knee-deep in fern and brake and brier, to a sort of little rocky pulpit.
The lake lay behind them, lapping the pulpit's base. There was a man in a boat out there. McKay fired at him and he plied both oars and fled out of range.
"Lie down," he whispered to Miss Erith. The girl mutely obeyed.
Now, crouched up there in the deepening dusk, his pistol extended, resting on the rock in front of him, his keen eyes searched restlessly; his ears were strained for the minutest stirring on the moor in front of him; and his embittered mind was at work alternately cursing his own stupidity and searching for some chance for this young girl whom his own incredible carelessness had probably done to death.