die away as he reached the heather of the moor.

I waited a little longer, and then crawled back to the cave. The owl
hooted, and presently Wake descended lightly beside me; he must have
known every foothold and handhold by heart to do the job in that inky
blackness. I remember that he asked no question of me, but he used
language rare on the lips of conscientious objectors about the men who
had lately been in the crevice. We, who four hours earlier had been at
death grips, now curled up on the hard floor like two tired dogs, and
fell sound asleep.

* * * * *

I woke to find Wake in a thundering bad temper. The thing he remembered
most about the night before was our scrap and the gross way I had
insulted him. I didn't blame him, for if any man had taken me for a
German spy I would have been out for his blood, and it was no good
explaining that he had given me grounds for suspicion. He was as touchy
about his blessed principles as an old maid about her age. I was
feeling rather extra buckish myself and that didn't improve matters.
His face was like a gargoyle as we went down to the beach to bathe, so
I held my tongue. He was chewing the cud of his wounded pride.

But the salt water cleared out the dregs of his distemper. You couldn't
be peevish swimming in that jolly, shining sea. We raced each other
away beyond the inlet to the outer water, which a brisk morning breeze
was curling. Then back to a promontory of heather, where the first
beams of the sun coming over the Coolin dried our skins. He sat hunched
up staring at the mountains while I prospected the rocks at the edge.
Out in the Minch two destroyers were hurrying southward, and I wondered
where in that waste of blue was the craft which had come here in the
night watches.

I found the spoor of the man from the sea quite fresh on a patch of
gravel above the tide-mark.

'There's our friend of the night,' I said.

'I believe the whole thing was a whimsy,' said Wake, his eyes on the
chimneys of Sgurr Dearg. 'They were only two natives--poachers,
perhaps, or tinkers.'

'They don't speak German in these parts.'

'It was Gaelic probably.'

'What do you make of this, then?' and I quoted the stuff about birds
with which they had greeted each other.

Wake looked interested. 'That's _Uber allen Gipfeln_. Have you ever
read Goethe?'

'Never a word. And what do you make of that?' I pointed to a flat rock
below tide-mark covere