"They have gone to waken my father," he whispered. "You see, they daren't do anything in these parts without the old bird. He is quite a different man from the one you saw poking about among your father's books, or drinking in his wisdom. Here he makes people do things. Try her again."
It was tedious work, but I flashed the whole message over again, according to the Morse code. This time the reply came back short and sweet.
"What—the—devil—are—you—doing—there?"
"That's Dad," said Hugh Deventer triumphantly. "Now we shall catch it."
I answered that having seen the soldiers retreat, we had come to help.
"Did—anybody—send—word—that—you—were—wanted?" twinkled the point of fire somewhere high among the chimney-stacks on the roof. These were a rarity in a district where one chimney for a house is counted a good average, but after one winter's experience of the windy Rhône valley, Dennis Deventer had refused to be done out of an open fireplace in every room.
Now he reaped the fruit of his labours, for in summer he had sat behind his low wall and taken the air of an evening, and now it needed little to convert the chimney-stacks on the flat roof of his house into reliable defences.
It was difficult to say in slow Morse alphabetage what we were doing down in the old summer-house, but at least I managed to convey that we had run the insurgent pickets and were in danger of being captured.
We got our reply quickly enough.
"Hugh—knows—the—door—under—the—main-outer—staircase."