The submarine had disappeared! The yacht was nearing the head of the loch. It was now or never. I made a dash for the side, but Fuller was before me. He tripped me up, and I fell heavily to the deck, bruising myself badly and giving my head a terrible bump. I put up my arm in a last feeble attempt to defend myself. Fuller’s hands closed on my throat and nearly choked the life out of me, and as I sank back, struggling for breath, a loud cry rang out from Hilderman.
“Guernstein! Guernstein!” he yelled.
Fuller let me go and ran to Hilderman. I lifted myself on my elbow. Somehow or other I would crawl to the side, and get away before he came back to finish me, but as I looked out over the stern I was rooted to the spot by the sight that met my eyes. Or was I deluding myself with the fantastic delirium of a dying man? Not four hundred yards away was a motor-boat. It was Hilderman’s Baltimore II., and in it were Myra, my poor Myra, and Garnesk and Angus, all wearing motor-goggles. But, strangest of all, a British destroyer was puffing serenely behind them. No, I must be dreaming. Garnesk had told me he was sending glasses for Myra. He had mentioned his connection with the naval authorities. This must be the nightmare of death-agony.
Then Fuller rushed up the wheel-house ladder and jumped on to the searchlight platform. Suddenly there flashed out on the grey light of the dawn a vivid green ray. So, then, the mystery was solved—but, alas! too late. The green ray was produced by a searchlight, and every man on the destroyer would be blind. I looked back, and as I did so I remembered, with an uncanny distinctness, old General McLeod’s words, “The rock came to me.” The warship seemed suddenly to grow double its size, and then double that, and so on, growing bigger and bigger until it appeared to fill the entire loch, and spread out the whole length of the horizon. I could even see a gold signet-ring on the finger of a young officer on the bridge. I looked round at the details of the boat; it stood out in amazing clearness. If one man on that ship, hundreds of yards away, had opened his mouth I could have counted his teeth. Suddenly I gasped with astonishment as I awoke to the fact that every man on board the destroyer was wearing motor-goggles! I had no time to speculate about this new surprise, for then the Fiona, left to her own devices, suddenly crashed ashore. The ship shook and shivered, and Fuller was thrown on his face beside the searchlight, and as I looked again the destroyer had resumed its normal proportions.
Then the crew of the Fiona rushed about the deck in mad terror, until, evidently at the wise suggestion of one of their number, they decided to wait calmly and give themselves up. Hilderman, closely followed by Fuller, sprang ashore, and made for the mountains. Half a dozen shots rang out from the destroyer, and a rifle bullet checked Fuller’s progress before he had gone more than a few yards.
Hilderman, however, managed to reach the shelter of a ridge of rock, and I watched him as he scuttled up the mountain side, and made straight for a long grey rock which protruded from the foot of a steep crag. And as I looked, and saw him go to the rock and open a door in it, I realised that it was really a great, grey, lean-to shed, cunningly concealed. Hilderman had scarcely opened the door when a huge, dark shadow seemed to fall out of the shed and envelop him. It was Sholto. Blind, and half-mad with fury, he sprang at Hilderman’s throat with the unerring aim of his breed. The wretched man staggered and fell, and Sholto——.
I turned away from the sickening sight, and looked over the side, and saw Myra standing up, waving to me, as they drew alongside the wrecked Fiona.
And then I’m afraid I must have fainted.
I lay on the sofa in Myra’s den, and Myra—God bless her!—was kneeling beside me. Sholto was with us too, looking incredibly wise in a pair of motor-goggles.