The Grey Man

by S. R. Crockett

While we thus waited and planned, Nell told us how that she had remained at Culzean till there seemed no more hope of Marjorie's coming. Then there arrived a lass of the Cochranes who had been Marjorie's tiring maid at Auchendrayne. From her Nell learned how, after a fierce and bitter scene with the elder Mure, Marjorie had fled from Auchendrayne none knew whither, escaping all their toils and passing their inner and outer guard under silence of night. Then so soon as she had heard this, fearing all evil to her sister, Nell set out to find me—believing that, in the absence of any hope of help from her brothers, I might aid her to find her sister and to clear some of the ever deepening mysteries.

It was the dusk of an evening, sweet and debonnair, when we left the castle which had been so long our home, and descended the perilous steeps to the foot of Ailsa. Here we found Nell's boat safe in its cove, and immediately we pushed out, having placed therein all our weapons and belongings. Nell sat in the stern, and the Dominie and I took the oars. The storm of the night and morning had abated, and there was now no more than an oily swell upon the water.

There was little talk between us as we went, for we felt that our lives were in our hands and that we might be only running into greater perils. I supposed that the Dominie was thinking of the love he had lost by black, unnatural murder, on that dangerous shore to which we were making our way. We kept well to the south of Girvan, because I had twice gone there on errands which did not tend to make us favourites with the Bargany Kennedies and their supporters, of whom the townsfolk were mostly composed. Besides, I remembered the word of the rascal whom I had held at my mercy in the house of Mistress Allison, the Grieve's wife at Culzean. 'The treasure of Kelwood is in the cave of Sawny Bean on the shore of Bennanbrack over against Benerard.' And this, though not a clear direction, pointed to some promontory south of Girvan and north of Ballantrae.

And though the discovery of my master's death was, I trust, first in my mind, I need not deny that I was also mindful of the treasure for which so much had been adventured first and last.

It was a high tide and a calm sea when we got over into the loom of the cliffs. We had a making wind and the tide was with us, so that we had been able to set the sail part of the way—for a little mast which would carry a lug sail lay snugly under the thwarts of the boat.

The Dominie, who in his rambling youth had followed the sea, both steered and managed the sheet as we drew nearer the shore, while I lay over the bow and kept a look-out ahead. We steered towards a light which went wavering along the top of the rocks, for we opined that it must be some shepherd wandering with a lantern to look for a lost sheep. Now it dipped into clefts, now it mounted to the summit of the crags, and anon it was lost again behind the screes and tumbled cliffs of the coast.

Suddenly from high above us, where we had last seen the light, we heard sounds as of pain and despair—a woman's cry in her extremity—not weeping or beseeching, but crying only, being, as it seemed, utterly in distress.

''Tis our Marjorie! I ken her voice!' cried Nell, and we all strained our eyes upwards to the dark heuchs. The lantern had come to a standstill almost directly above us.

The Dominie silently took down the mast and let it rest in the bottom of the boat. Our speed slackened till we floated without motion on the gently heaving water. I continued to peer into the gloom. Yet how Marjorie Kennedy could have come to be in danger upon the shore of Benane was far beyond my comprehending at that time.

'Marjorie! Sister Marjorie!' cried Nell, as loudly as she could. And almost as she spoke I saw something white descending towards us from the cliff, like a poised bird that closes its pinions and dives into the water. The smitten waters sprang up white not twenty feet from our bows.