others, as well as I could make out
(standing back at a distance and hearing a strange tongue), the news was
received with more of consternation than surprise.

For all our hurry, day began to come in while we were still far from any
shelter. It found us in a prodigious valley, strewn with rocks, and
where ran a foaming river. Wild mountains stood around it; there grew
there neither grass nor trees; and I have sometimes thought since then
that it may have been the valley called Glencoe, where the massacre was
in the time of King William. But for the details of our itinerary I am
all to seek; our way lying now by short cuts, now by great detours; our
pace being so hurried, our time of journeying usually by night; and the
names of such places as I asked and heard being in the Gaelic tongue and
the more easily forgotten.

The first peep of morning, then, showed us this horrible place, and I
could see Alan knit his brow.

"This is no fit place for you and me," he said. "This is a place they're
bound to watch."

And with that he ran harder than ever down to the water-side, in a part
where the river was split in two among three rocks. It went through with
a horrid thundering that made my belly quake; and there hung over the
lynn a little mist of spray. Alan looked neither to the right nor to the
left, but jumped clean upon the middle rock and fell there on his hands
and knees to check himself, for that rock was small, and he might have
pitched over on the far side. I had scarce time to measure the distance
or to understand the peril before I had followed him, and he had caught
and stopped me.

So there we stood, side by side upon a small rock slippery with spray, a
far broader leap in front of us, and the river dinning upon all sides.
When I saw where I was, there came on me a deadly sickness of fear, and
I put my hand over my eyes. Alan took me and shook me; I saw he was
speaking, but the roaring of the falls and the trouble of my mind
prevented me from hearing; only I saw his face was red with anger, and
that he stamped upon the rock. The same look showed me the water raging
by, and the mist hanging in the air: and with that I covered my eyes
again and shuddered.

The next minute Alan had set the brandy bottle to my lips, and forced me
to drink about a gill, which sent the blood into my head again. Then,
putting his hands to his mouth, and his mouth to my ear, he shouted,
"Hang or drown!" and turning his back upon m