“I dinna ken that the stanes’ll be ower muckle safe, Sir Alan, forbye ye canna see them at a’ wi’ the white water swirling ower them, and the pool maybe ten feet deep close in under them. We mought win ower recht enoo, an’ again we mought na—ye ken——”
“Yes, I ken,” interrupted Sir Alan. “We’ll go round by the bridge, gentlemen. There’s a flood in the river, it appears—a cheerful habit the Balmaquidder has when you least want it or expect it.”
By the bridge accordingly we went, and when I saw the brown water whirling down in swift eddies I was thankful that we had not attempted the stepping-stones.
It was evening, and fast growing dark, when we reached the glen on our return, wet, tired, and hungry, but thoroughly satisfied with the day’s result. We were stepping out briskly, for we knew we were close to home, when a big mountain hawk swooped right in front of us. Jones, who had not drawn the cartridge from his rifle, let fly on the instant, without remembering how small was his chance with a bullet at quarry on the wing. We were amusing ourselves chaffing Jones as the bird flew off untouched when Colonel Eyre, who was a few steps to the rear, pulled up short and raised his hand to signal for silence.
We all heard it then—a shrill, lamentable voice ringing sharply from the hillside; there was no mistaking the purport of that appeal, it was a cry for help. But the mist was beginning to settle and the echo baffled us. For a moment we looked blankly at each other and around, not knowing whither to turn.
Again the cry, “Help, help, help!” with a note of agony in it that stirred the blood like a trumpet. “God guide us—’tis at the foord above you,” cried the gillie, and, tired as we were, none of us were far behind him when he reached the stepping-stones.
They were hidden by a mass of swirling, broken water, but just below them lay the pool of which the guide had spoken—calm by comparison with the ford, but agitated nevertheless with a swift current that flashed between steep banks faced with granite; as ugly a place for an accident as might be found in the whole length of the brawling Balmaquidder.
And an accident had happened, plainly enough. On one of the granite boulders knelt Mrs. Everton, leaning back with all her might against the drag of a plaid, one end of which she 325 held, while the other was lost in the black shadows of the pool.