, Sir Archie, and McGuffog--to
help in moving furniture to the several doors. Sime and Carfrae
attended to the kitchen entrance, while he himself made a tour of the
ground-floor windows. For half an hour the empty house was loud with
strange sounds. McGuffog, who was a giant in strength, filled the
passage at the verandah end with an assortment of furniture ranging
from a grand piano to a vast mahogany sofa, while Saskia and Sir Archie
pillaged the bedrooms and packed up the interstices with mattresses in
lieu of sandbags. Dougal on his turn saw fit to approve the work.

"That'll fickle the blagyirds. Down at the kitchen door we've got a
mangle, five wash-tubs, and the best part of a ton o' coal. It's the
windies I'm anxious about, for they're ower big to fill up. But I've
gotten tubs of water below them and a lot o' wire-nettin' I fund in the
cellar."

Sir Archie morosely wiped his brow. "I can't say I ever hated a job
more," he told Saskia. "It seems pretty cool to march into somebody
else's house and make free with his furniture. I hope to goodness our
friends from the sea do turn up, or we'll look pretty foolish. Loudon
will have a score against me he won't forget."

"Ye're no' weakenin'?" asked Dougal fiercely.

"Not a bit. Only hopin' somebody hasn't made a mighty big mistake."

"Ye needn't be feared for that. Now you listen to your instructions.
We're terrible few for such a big place, but we maun make up for
shortness o' numbers by extra mobility. The gemkeeper will keep the
windy that looks on the verandy, and fell any man that gets through.
You'll hold the verandy door, and the ither lame man--is't Carfrae ye
call him?--will keep the back door. I've telled the one-armed man, who
has some kind of a head on him, that he maun keep on the move, watchin'
to see if they try the front door or any o' the other windies. If they
do, he takes his station there. D'ye follow?"

Sir Archie nodded gloomily.

"What is my post?" Saskia asked.

"I've appointed ye my Chief of Staff," was the answer. "Ye see we've
no reserves. If this door's the dangerous bit, it maun be reinforced
from elsewhere; and that'll want savage thinkin'. Ye'll have to be aye
on the move, Mem, and keep me informed. If they break in at two bits,
we're beat, and there'll be nothing for it but to retire to our last
position. Ye ken the room ayont the hall where they keep the coats.
That's our last trench, and at the worst we fall ba