From the north there came no sign, for there alone no fires had been lighted. But the Wild spread the farthest and was most dangerous and inaccessible in that direction. Only morning would reveal the solitary tiny zigzag of path which connected them with their fellows, a path which Stair believed to be quite impossible—unless—and here a suspicion went flashing through his mind which sent him indoors with a bound. No, Eben the Spy was lying on his bed apparently sound asleep.
Stair gazed at him with a bitter smile.
"That's what comes of having a bad record against you," he murmured, "the man may be quite innocent. He may be really asleep. Yet as things are I dare not treat him as if he were either. To-morrow he must do a little scouting for us. He shall feel for the enemy, and if they fire upon him—well and good, then he has not brought the enemy down upon us. But because of his past, he must undergo the ordeal by fire and water.
"Well, we will let him sleep, but all the same I shall keep an eye upon him to see that he does not take French leave during the night!"
Stair called Mr. Wemyss from his reading. The ex-ambassador thought that a new parcel of books had arrived, and made haste to obey. He saw the door of the Bothy open and Stair, a large, dark shape vaguely outlined against a rosy illumination, the cause of which he did not understand, leaning easily with his shoulder against the lintel-post, blocking all exit.
"Well, Stair," said Julian, "did you find Joseph? Had he any word of the Good Intent?"
"I did find Joseph," said Stair curtly, "and it will be a long time before I find him again. Do you see that?"
"That" referred to the numerous fires which were now being lighted on the heights of the sand-hills, by the fugitives from the camps in the hollows of the Wild, who had been driven out by the invading waters of the dam constructed by the Garland brothers and their followers.
Julian Wemyss gazed a little stupidly. His eyes were unaccustomed to the dark, and he blinked like one who finds a difficulty in believing the evidence of his senses.
"Are these really fires?" he asked, covering his eyes with his hand.