Kate gave a sharp cry, half of disappointment and half of relief. Her love it was not; but his friend it was. And if this were John Scarlett, where would Wat Gordon be by this time—of a surety lying deep in the green heave of some far-reaching "gloop," or battered against the cruel cliffs of the "goës," into which the surges swelled and thundered, throwing themselves in bootless assault upon the perpendicular cliffs, and fretting their pure green arches into delicatest gray lace of foam and little white cataracts which came pouring back into the gloomy depths along every crevice and over every ledge.
John Scarlett lay with his broad chest naked and uncovered, for his coat and waistcoat had already become centres of two separate quarrels, shrill and contentious as the bickerings of sparrows over the worm which they hold by either end and threaten to rend in pieces.
Patterns of muskets and sword-blades were wrought upon the veteran's breast in a fashion which was then common to all men of adventuring—land travellers and seafarers alike. The old soldier's arms and breast were a mass of scars and cicatrices, both from his many public campaigns and from his innumerable excursions upon the field of private honor.
"This has been a man indeed," said one of the men that stood by; "many a knife has been tried on that skin, and many, I warrant, gat deeper holes and deadlier cuts than these in the making of this pretty patchwork."
"He is an enemy of the chief, that is beyond a doubt," said another; "for he is not a man of the isles, and our Lord Murdo forbade the coming of any else. It will be safer to stick him with a gully-knife before he comes to, lest a worst thing happen us."
And it is likely that this amiable intention might have become the finding and conclusion of the meeting, but that at that moment Kate pierced the throng and threw herself down on the salt, clammy pebbles at John Scarlett's head. She put her hand upon his heart, but could not feel it beat. Before long she was reinforced by Mrs. McAlister, who arrived panting. She swept the men unceremoniously aside with her arm, and addressed them in their own tongue, in words which carried insult and railing in the very sound of them.
The two women had not worked long at the chill, sea-tossed body of the master-at-arms before John Scarlett opened his eyes and looked about him.
"Bess Landsborough!" he said, without manifesting the least surprise, "what for did ye no' meet me at the kirk stile of Colmonel, where I trysted wi' ye?"
"John Scarlett!" cried Mrs. McAlister, "I declare in the name o' a' that's holy, Jack Scarlett, the King's Dragoon—what in the world has brocht ye here, lying bare and broadcast on the cauld stanes of Suliscanna?"
"I cam' seekin' you, Bess," said John Scarlett, easing himself up on his elbow with a grimace of pain. "I heard in Colmonel that ye had kilted your coats o' green satin and awa' wi' John Hielandman. So I e'en cam' round this gate to see if ye had tired o' him."