All in vain.
Charles had dismissed the crofters on the estate; and, as the
shooting-party that day was in an opposite direction, not a soul
was near to whom we could call for succour.
I climbed down again to Charles. The evening came on slowly. Cries
of sea-birds rang weird upon the water. Puffins and cormorants
circled round our heads in the gray of twilight. Charles suggested
that they might even swoop down upon us and bite us. They did not,
however, but their flapping wings added none the less a painful
touch of eeriness to our hunger and solitude. Charles was horribly
depressed. For myself, I will confess I felt so much relieved at
the fact that Colonel Clay had not openly betrayed me in the matter
of the commission, as to be comparatively comfortable.
We crouched on the hard crag. About eleven o'clock we heard human
voices. "Boat ahoy!" I shouted. An answering shout aroused us to
action. We rushed down to the landing-place and cooee'd for the men,
to show them where we were. They came up at once in Sir Charles's
own boat. They were fishermen from Niggarey, on the shore of the
Firth opposite.
A lady and gentleman had sent them, they said, to return the boat
and call for us on the island; their description corresponded to
the two supposed Grantons.
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