Then, at last, he slept soundly, to be awakened just at dawn by the roar of a gun, followed by a rattle of small shot, and the frantic hurrying of feet overhead.
[CHAPTER XI
THE GUNS OF MONTROSE]
WHEN Archie lay and pictured James on the other side of the water his vision was a true one, but, while he saw him on the quay among the sheds and windlasses, he had set him in the wrong place.
James stood at the point of the bay formed by the Basin of Montrose, at the inner and landward side of the town, not far from the empty fort from which Hall had taken the guns. The sands at his feet were bare, for the tide was out, and the salt, wet smell of the oozing weed blew round him on the faint wind. He was waiting for Ferrier.
They had chosen this night, as at this hour the ebbing water would make it possible for the hundred men of Ferrier’s regiment to keep clear of the roads, and to make their way from Brechin on the secluded shore of the Basin. Logie had not been there long when he heard the soft sound of coming feet, and the occasional knocking of shoes against stone. As an increasing shadow took shape, he struck his hand twice against his thigh, and the shadow grew still. He struck again, and in another minute Ferrier was beside him; the soldiers who followed halted behind their leader. The two men said little to each other, but moved on side by side, and the small company wound up the rising slope of the shore to the deserted fort and gathered at its foot.
James and his friend went on a little way and stood looking east down the townward shore of the strait past the huddled houses massed together at this end of Montrose. The water slid to the sea, and halfway down the long quay in front of them was moored the unrigged barque that held the town guns—the four-pounders and six-pounders that had pointed their muzzles for so many years from the fort walls towards the thundering bar.
Hall had not concerned himself to bring the vessel into his own immediate neighbourhood, nor even to put a few dozen yards of water between her and the shore. He knew that no organized rebel force existed within nine miles of where she lay, and that the Jacobites among the townsmen could not attempt any hostile movement unaided. He had eighty men on board the Venture with him, and from them he had taken a small guard which was left in charge of the barque. Every two or three days he would send a party from the sloop to patrol the streets of Montrose, and to impress disloyally inclined people. His own investigations of the place had not been great, for, though he went ashore a good deal, it cannot be said that King George’s interests were much furthered by his doings when he got there.
When Logie and Ferrier had posted a handful of men in the empty fort, they went on towards the barque’s moorings followed by the rest, and leaving a few to guard the mouth of each street that opened on the quay. The whole world was abed behind the darkened windows and the grim stone walls that brooded like blind faces over the stealthy band passing below. When they reached the spot where the ferry-boat lay that plied between Montrose and the south shore of the strait, two men went down to the landing-stage, and, detaching her chains, got her ready to push off. Then, with no more delay, the friends pressed on to the main business of their expedition. As they neared the barque, a faint shine forward where her bows pointed seaward suggested that someone on board was waking, so, judging it best to make the attack before an alarm could be given, the two captains ran on with their men, and were climbing over the bulwarks and tumbling on to her deck before Captain Hall’s guard, who were playing cards round a lantern, had time to collect their senses.
The three players sprang to their feet, and one of them sent a loud cry ringing into the darkness before he sprawled senseless, with his head laid open by the butt-end of Ferrier’s pistol. In this unlooked-for onslaught, that had come upon them as suddenly as the swoop of a squall in a treacherous sea, they struck blindly about, stumbling into the arms of the swarming, unrecognized figures that had poured in on their security out of the peaceful night. James had kicked over the lantern, and the cards lay scattered about under foot, white spots in the dimness. The bank of cloud was thinning a little round the moon, and the angles of the objects on deck began to be more clearly blocked out. One of the three, who had contrived to wrench himself from his assailant’s hold, sprang away and raced towards the after-part of the ship, where, with the carelessness of security, he had left his musket. Three successive shots was the signal for help from the Venture in case of emergency, and he made a gallant effort to get free to send this sign of distress across the strait. But he was headed back and overpowered before he could carry out his intention. One of his companions was lying as if dead on the deck, and the other, who had been cajoled to silence by the suggestive caress of a pistol at the back of his ear, was having his arms bound behind him with his own belt.