 Chapter 21 Part 1 of the Three Hostages. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Chapter 21 How I Stocked the Wilder Game Than Deer. 9am to 2.15pm Obviously, I could make no plan, and I had no clear idea in my head as to what kind of settlement I wanted with Medina. I was certain that I should find him somewhere on that hill, and that if he got a chance, he would try to kill me. The odds were, of course, against his succeeding straight off. But escape was not what I sought. I must get rid of this menace forever. I don't think that I wanted to kill him, but indeed I never tried to analyze my feelings. I was obeying a blind instinct and letting myself drift on the tides of fate. Corey Neyside is an upper quarry separated from the Isle Valley by a curtain of rock and sacri, which I dare say was once the moraine of a glacier, and down which the alt-na said he tumbled in a fine chain of cascades. So steep its fall is that no fish can ascend it, so that while at the foot it is full of a sizable trout, in the quarry itself it holds nothing. As Greenslade reported, but little dark fingerlings, it was very warm as we mounted the chaos of slabs and boulders where a very sketchy and winding track had been cut for the bringing down of the deer. Only the toughest kind of pony could make that ascent. Though the day was young, the heat was already great, and the glen behind us swam in a glassy sheen. Kennedy as usual mopped his brow and grunted, but the lean angus strode ahead as if he were on the flat. At the edge of the quarry we halted for a spy. Deep hollows have a trick of drawing the wind, and such faint currents of air as I could detect seemed to be coming on our own left rear from the northeast. Angus was positive, however, that though the south had gone out of the wind, it was pretty well due east with no north in it, and maintained that when we were farther up the quarry we would have it fair on our left cheek. We were not long in finding beasts. There was a big drove of hines on the right bank of the burn and another lot, with a few small stags on the left bank, well up on the face of Bih-Hin-Fada, but there was nothing shootable there. The big stags will be on all the high tops, said Angus, we must be getting up to the burn head. It was easier said than done, for there were the hines to be circumvented, so we had to make a long circuit far up the hill called Klumlet, which is the western most of the Macrae tops south of Aseel. It was rough going, for we mounted about 3,000 feet level and traversed the hillside just under the upper scarpe of the rock. Presently we were looking down upon the cup, which was the head of the quarry, and over the cool could we see the peak of Stab quarry Aseen, and the ridge of the Saab Ban, both on Haripul and beyond the Reskul. We had another spy, and made out of two small lots of stags on the other side of Alt-Naseed. They were too far off to get a proper view of them, but one or two looked good beasts, and I decided to get near. We had to make a cautious descent of the hillside in case of deer lion in pockets, for the place was seamed with gullies. Before we were halfway down, I got my telescope on one of the lots, and picked out a big stag with a poor head, which clearly wanted shooting. Angus agreed, and we started down a sheltering ravine to get to the burnside. The side of the quarry made me forget everything else. For the next hour and a half, I hadn't a thought in the world except how to get within range of that beast. One stalk is very much like another, and I'm not going to describe this. The only trouble came from a small stag in our rear, which had come over, clundled, and got the scent of our track on the hill face. This unsettled him, and he went off at a great pace towards the top of the burn. I thought at first that the brew would go up to Blenend Fada, and carry off our lot with him, but he came to a halt. Changed his mind and made for the hair pool, march, and the coal. After that, it was plain sailing. We crawled up the right of the Altna Seheed, which was the first class cover, and then turned up a tributary gully, which came down from Blenend Fada. Indeed, the whole business was too simple to be much of interest to anyone, except the man with the rifle. When I judged I was about the latitude of my stag, I crept out of the burn and reached a hill lock, from which I had a good view of him. The head, I suspected, was poor, only nine points. Though the horns were of rough, thick, old Highland type, but the body was heavy, and he was clearly a back-going beast. After a wait of some twenty minutes, he got up and gave me the chase of about two hundred yards. I dropped him dead with a shot in the net, which was the only part of him clear. It was for me the first stag of the season, and it is always a pleasant moment when the tension relaxes and you let your pipe and look around you. As soon as the lock was over, I proposed lunch, and we found for the purpose a little nook by a spring. We were within a few hundred yards of hair-pool march, which does not run along the watershed but crosses the quarry about half a mile below the coal. In the old days of sheep there had been a fence, the decaying post of which could be observed a little way off on the knoll. Between the fence and the coal laid some very rough ground, where the Altna Sahid had its source, ground so broken that it was impossible without going a good way up the hill to see from it the watershed ridge. I finished Mary's stuffing scones and ginger biscuits and had a drink of whiskey and spring water while Angus and Kennedy ate their lunch a few yards off in the heather. I was just lighting my pipe when a sound made me pause with a match in my hand, a rifle bullet sang over my head. It was not very near, fifty feet or so above me, and a little to the left, the tamed towerists I heard Angus exclaim. I knew it was Medina, as certainly as if I had seen him. He was somewhere in the rough ground between the hair-pool march and the coal, probably close to the coal, for the sound of the report seemed to come from a good way off. He could not have been aiming at me, for I was perfectly covered, but he must have seen me when I stalked the stag. He had decided that his chance was not yet come and the shot was camouflage to keep up the reputation of hair-pool for wild shooting. It would be the staggy that went over the march, grunted Angus, the towerists, to be shooting at such a wee beast. I had suddenly made up my mind. I would give Medina the opportunity he sought. I would go and look for him. I got up and stretched my legs. I am going to stalk on my own, I told Angus. I'll go over to the quarry, his son. You had better pull this beast down to the burn side and then fetch the pony. You might send Huey and the other pony up to Glenacelle to the mad burn. If I get a stag, I'll go lock him and get him down somehow to the burn. So tell Huey to look out for my signal. I'll wave a white handkerchief. The wind is backing round to the north, Angus. It should be alright for quarry, his son, if I take it from the south. That would be better for so dear, said Angus. But that's over far. Have you the cartridges sure? Plenty, I said patting a side pocket. Give me that spare rope, Kennedy. I'll want it for hauling down my stag if I get one. I put my little 240 into its cover, knotted to the men and turned down the gully to the main burn. I wasn't going to appear on the bare hillside, so long as it was possible for Medina to have a shot at me. But soon a ridge shut off the view from the hair pool ground, and then I took a slant up the face of Bahine Vada. Mary had spent most of the morning at the big telescope in the library window. She saw us reach the rim of the quarry and lost us when we moved up the side of Clonlet. We came into view again far up the quarry, and she saw the stalk and the death of the stag. Then she went to luncheon, but hastened back in the middle of it to see me scrambling alone among the screes of Blenin Vada. At first she was reassured because she thought I was coming home, but then she realized that I was mounting higher and making for quarry a sun, her heart sank, and when I had gone out of view she could do nothing but range miserably about the garden. 2.15 to about 5pm. It was very hot on Blenin Vada before I was out of the wind, but when I reached the ridge and looked down on quarry a sun I found a fair breeze which had certainly more north than east in it. There was not a cloud in the sky, and every top for miles round stood out clear, except the harapul peaks which were shut off by the highest of the ridge I stood on. Quarry is sane, lay far below, not a broad cup like quarry, no seed, but a deep gash in the hills. I inclined at such an angle that the stream in it was nothing but white water. We called it the Madburn, it's gay-like name, I think, was the Alt Amuhulan, and halfway up was just opposite me a tributary. The Redburn came down from the cliffs of Sewergdierg. I could see the northern peak of that mountain, a beautiful cone of rock rising, like the Matterhorn from the Glacys of Secre. I argued that Medina would have seen me going up Blenin Vada, and would assume that I was bound for quarry, a scene he would recross the coal and make for the harapul side of the lodge, which led from the quarry to the rescue. Now I wanted to keep the higher ground where I could follow his movements, so it was my aim to get the watershed ridge looking down on Harapul before he did. The wind was a nuisance, for it was blowing from me and would move any deer toward him, thereby giving him a clue to my whereabouts. So I thought if I could once locate him, I might try to get the lee side of him. In that time, I think I had a vague notion of driving him towards Macrae. I moved at my best pace along the east face of Blenin Vada towards the Blee Leech, which was a deep rift in the gray rock curtain through which deer could pass. My only feeling was excitement, such I had never known before any stock. I slipped and sprawled among the slabs, slithered over the sucrese, had one or two awkward traverses around the butt end of the cliffs, but in 20 minutes I was at the point where the massive of Blenin Vada joined the watershed ridge. The easy way was now to get on the ridge, but I dared not appear on the skyline, so I made a troublesome journey along the near side of the ridge wall, sometimes out of the face of the sheer precipices, but more often involved a chaos of loose boulders, which were the debris of the upper rocks. I was forced pretty far down and eventually struck the Blee Leech patch, about 500 feet below the summit. At the crest I found I had no view of the Rescule Valley, only a narrow quarry blocked by the shoulder of the hill, in the bold top of Stab quarry as seen beyond. A prospect I must have, so I turned east along the watershed ridge in the direction of Sogdeer. I was by this time very warm, for I come at a brisk pace. I had a rifle to carry and had Angus' rope around my shoulders like a Swiss guide. I was wearing an old gray suit, which, with bluish dockings, made me pretty well visible on that hillside. Presently I mounted the ridge, keeping the course under the skyline. I came to a place where a lift of the rocks enabled me to clear the spurs and command a mile or so of Rescule. The place was on the skyline, bare and exposed. I crawled to the edge where I could get a view. Below me, after a few hundred yards of rocks and scree, I saw a long track of bracken and deep heather sweeping down to the stream. Medina, I made sure, was somewhere thereabouts, watching the ridge. I calculated that, with his recrossing of the coal at the head of the quarry, Nasid, and his working around the south end of the Benenvada. He could not have had time to get down to the Beliche, or near the Beliche. Before me, I must still be on the lower ground. Indeed, I hoped to catch sight of him, for, while I was assured he was pursuing me, he could not know that I was after him and might be off his guard. But there was no sign of life in that sunny stretch of green and purple. Broken by the gray of boulders, I searched it with my glass and could see no movement except pippets, and a curlew by a patch of bog. Then it occurred to me to show myself. He must be made to know that I had accepted this challenge. I stood up straight on the edge of the steep and decided to remain standing till I had counted fifty. It was an insane thing to do, I daresay, but I was determined to force the pace. I had got to forty-one without anything happening. Then a sudden instinct made me crouch and step aside. That movement was my salvation. There was a sound like a twang'd fiddle string, a bullet passed over my left shoulder. I felt the wind of it on my cheek. The next second I was on my back wriggling below the skyline. Once there I could get to my feet and run up the ridge on my left to get a view from higher ground. The shot was so far as I could judge had come from well below and a little to the east where I had been standing. I found another crunkle of rock and crept to the edge of it so that I looked from between two boulders to the glen. The place was still utterly quiet. My enemy was hidden there, probably not half a mile off, but there was nothing to reveal his presence. The light wind stirred the bog cotton, a Marilyn sailed across to stop Cory Essine, a raven croaked in the crags. But these were the only sounds. There was not even a sign of deer. My glass showed that halfway down an old ewe was feeding. One of those melancholy beasts put strain to the forest from adjacent sheep ground and lead a precarious life among the rocks, lean and matted and wild till some gilly cuts their throats. They are far sharper eyed and quicker of hearing than a stag and an unmitigated curse to the stalker. The brute was feeding on a patch of turf near a big stretch of bracken and suddenly I saw her raise her head and stare. It was the first time I had ever felt well disposed towards a sheep. She was curious about something in a shallow gully which flanked the brackens and so was I. I kept my glass glued on her and saw her toss her disreputable head, stamp her foot, and then heard her whistle through her nose. This was a snag Medina could not have reckoned with. He was clearly in that gully working his way upward in its cover unwitted that you was giving him away. I argued that he must want to reach the high ground as soon as possible. He had seen me on the ridge and must naturally conclude that I had beaten a retreat. My first business, therefore, was to reassure him. I got my rifle out of its cover which I stuffed into my pocket. There was a little patch of gravel just on the lip of the gully. I calculated that he would emerge beside it. Under the shade of a layberry covered stone I guessed right. I saw first an arm then a shoulder part the rushes and presently a face which peered uphill. My glass showed me that the face was Medina's very red and dirty from contact with the PD soil. He slowly reached for his glass and began to scan the heights. I don't know what my purpose was at the time. If indeed I had any purpose I didn't exactly mean to kill him. I think, though, I felt it might come to that. Bagley I wanted to put him out of action to put the fear of God in him and make him come to terms. Of further consequences I never thought but I had one clear intention to make him understand that I accepted his challenge. I put a bullet neatly into the center of the patch of gravel then got my glass on it. He knew the game all right. In a second like a weasel he was back in the gully. I reckoned that now I had my chance. Along the ridge I went mounting fast and keeping always below the skyline I wanted to get to the lee side of him and so be able to stalk him upwind and I thought that I had an opportunity now to turn the head of the rescue by one of the sheep quarries which descend from sore deer. Looking back it all seems very confused and amateurish for what could I hope to do even if I had the lee side beyond killing or wounding him but I had a chance of that as long as I had the upper ground but in the excitement of the chase the mind does not take long views and I was enthralled by the crazy sport of the thing. I did not feel any fear because I was not worrying about consequences. Soon I came to the part of the ridge and saw frowning upon me the great rock face of soaked deer. I saw too a thing I had forgotten. There was no way up the mountain direct from the ridge where the tower rose was perpendicular as a house wall to surmounted a man must traverse on one side or the other on the mack ray side by a secrete slope or on the hair pull side by a deep gully which formed the top of the quarry to which I was now looking. Across that quarry was the first of the great buttress which shirk deer sends down to rescue. It was the famous pinnacle ridge as the mountaineers called it. I climbed it three weeks before and found it pretty stiff. And then I had kept the ridge all the way from the valley bottom and I did not see any practicable road up to the quarry face of it which was nothing but slabs and rotten rocks while the few chimneys had ugly overhangs. I lay flat and reconnoitred. What was Medina likely to do? After my shot he could not follow up the ridge. The cover was too poor on the upper slopes I reasoned that he would keep on the broken ground up by the glen till he reached this quarry and try to find a road to the high ground either by the quarry itself or by one of the spurs. In that case it was my business to wait for him but first I thought I had better put a fresh clip in my magazine for the shot I had fired had been the last cartridge in the old clip. It was now that I made an appalling discovery. I had felt my pockets and told Angus that I had plenty of cartridges so I had but they didn't fit. I remembered that two days before I had lent Archie my 240 and he had been shooting with a manletcher. What I had in my pocket were manletcher clips left over from that day. I might chuck my rifle away for it was no more use than a poker. At first I was stunned by the fatality here was I engaged in a duel on a wild mountain with one of the best shots in the world and I had lost my gun. The sensible course would have been to go home there was plenty of time for that to long before Medina reached the ridge I could be in cover in the gorge of the mad burn but that way out of it never occurred to me I had chosen to set the course and the game must be played out here and now but I confess that I was pretty well in despair and could see no plan I think I had a faint hope of protracting the thing till dark and then trusting to my hill craft to get even with him but I had an unpleasant feeling that he was not likely to oblige me with so long a delay I forced myself to think and decided that Medina would either come up to the quarry or take the steep spur which formed the right hand side of it and ran down to the rascule the second route would give him cover but also render him liable to a surprise at close quarters if I divined his intention for I might suddenly confront him four yards at the top of one of the pitches he would therefore prefer the quarry which was magnificently broken up with rocks steamed with ravines and at the same time gave a clear view of all the high ground with my face in a clump of loose wart I raked the place with my glass and to my delight saw a deer feeding about halfway down in the right hand corner Medina could not ascend the quarry without disturbing these deer a batch of some thirty hinds with five small ferrous stags among them therefore I was protected from that side and had only the ridge to watch but as I lay there I thought of another plan Medina I was pretty certain would try the quarry first and would not see the deer till he was well inside it but they were on that kind of platform which hid them from below opposite me across the narrow quarry rose the great black wall of the pinnacle ridge with the wind blowing from me towards it I remember a trick which Angus had taught me how a stalker might have his wind carried against his face of an opposite mountain and then so to speak reflected from it and brought back to his own side so that deer below him would get it away from it upward towards him if I let my scent be carried to the pinnacle ridge and divert it back it would move the deer on the platform up the quarry towards me it would be a faint wind so that they would move slowly away from it no doubt towards a gap under the tower of Swagdeer which led to the little quarry at the head of the red burn we never stalked that quarry because it was impossible to get a stag out of it without cutting him up so the place was a kind of sanctuary to which disturbed deer would naturally resort I stood on the skyline being confident that Medina could not be yet with insight and let the wind which was now stronger nearly do north ruffle my hair I did this for about 5 minutes then lay down to watch the result with my glass on the deer presently I saw them become restless first the hinds and then the small stags lift their heads looking towards pinnacle ridge soon a little fellow trotted a few yards uphill and then a couple of hinds moved after him and then by a sudden insimutaneous impulse the whole party began to drift up the quarry it was a quiet, steady advance and they were not scared only a little doubtful I saw with satisfaction their objective seemed to be the gap which led over the red burn Medina must see this and would assume that wherever I was I was not ahead of the deer he might look for me on the other side but more likely would follow the beast so as to get the high ground once there he could see my movements whether I was on the slopes of the pinnacle ridge or down the macri side he would consider no doubt that his markmanship was so infinitely better than mine that he had only to pick me out of the landscape to make an end of the business what exactly intended to do I did not know I had a fleeting notion of lying hidden and surprising him but the chances against that were about a million to one and even if I had got him at close quarters he was armed and I was not I moved a little to the right so as to keep my wind from the deer and waited with a chill beginning to creep over my spirit my watch told me it was about five o'clock Mary and Peter John would be having tea among Prince Charlie Roses in green slate and archie coming out from the river it would be heavenly at macri now among greenery and the cool airs of the evening up here there was loveliness enough from the stars of the Butterboard and the grass of the Pyrenees by the wellhead to the solemn tops of Sogdeer the color of the stormy waves against a faint turquoise sky but I knew now that the beauty of the earth depends on the eye of the beholder for suddenly the clean airy world around me had grown leaden and stifling End of part one Chapter 21 Chapter 21 Part 2 of the Three Hossages This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or a volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Three Hostages by John Buchan Part 2 5 p.m. to about 7.30 p.m. It was a good hour before he came I had guessed rightly he had made the deduction I was hoping for He was following the deer toward the gap Assuming I was on the Macrae side I was in a rushy hollow at a junction of the main ridge of the spur I had mentioned I could see him clearly as with immense circumspection in the use of every scrape of cover he had made his way up the quarry Once he was over the watershed I would command him from higher ground to have the wind to my advantage I had some hope now for I ought to be able to keep him on the hill till the light failed when my superior local knowledge would come to my aid He must be growing tired I reflected for he had far more ground to cover for myself I felt that I could go on forever That might have been the course of events but for a second sheep Sargeard had always been noted for possessing a few sheeps even on its high rocks Infernal, tattered, outlaws strays originally from some decent flock but now to all intents of new species Unclassified by science how they lived in bread I knew not but there was a legend of many a good stock ruined by their diabolical cunning I heard something between a snort and a whistle behind me and screwed my head around and saw one of these confounded animals poised on a rock and looking my direction It could see me perfectly too for on that side I had no cover I lay like a mouse watching Medina He was about half a mile off almost on top of the quarry and had halted for a rest and a spy prayed fervently that he would not see the sheep He heard it The brute started its whistling and coughing and a novice could have seen that it suspected something and knew that something was I observed him get his glass on my layer though from the place where he was he could see nothing but rushes then he seemed to make up his mind suddenly and disappeared from view I knew what he was after he had dropped into a scar which would take him to the skyline and enable him to come down on me from above while he himself would be safe from my observation There was nothing to do but to clear out the spur dropping to the rescue seemed to me the best chance so I started off crouching and crawling to get round the nose of it and on the steep Glenward face it was a miserable job till I had turned to the corner for I expected every moment a bullet in the back Nothing happened however and soon I was slithering down awesome slabs to an insecure ledge of Heather I am a fairly experienced mountaineer a lover of rock just like vegetation mixed up with a climb and I had too much of it now there was perhaps a thousand feet of that spur and I think I must hold the speed record for its descent Scratched, bruised, and breathless I came to an anchor on the bed of skis with the infant rescue tumbling below me and beyond it a quarter mile off the black cliffs of the pinnacle ridge but what was my next step to be the position was reversed Medina was above me with a rifle and my own weapon was useless he must find out the road I had taken and would be after me like a flame it was no good going down the hill in the open ground he would get the chance of 20 shots it was no good sticking to the spur or the adjacent ridge for cover was bad I could not hide for long in the quarry then I looked to the pinnacle ridge and considered that for once I got into those dark coilers I might be safe the sawmiss had turned to the hills for his help I had better looked to the rocks I had a quarter mile of open to cross and a good deal more if I was to reach the ridge at a point of easy ascent there were chimneys in front of me deep black gashes but my recollection of them was that they had looked horribly difficult and had been plentifully supplied with overhangs supposing I got into one of them and stuck Medina would have me safe enough but I couldn't wait to think with an ugly cold feeling in my stomach supposing I got into one of them and stuck Medina would have me safe enough but I couldn't wait to think with an ugly cold feeling in my inside I got into the ravine of the burn after a long drink from the pool I started downstream keeping close to the right hand bank which mercifully was high and dotted with ruined saplings and as I went I was always turning my head to see behind and above me what I feared I think Medina, who of course did not know about my rifle, may have suspected a trap for he came on slowly when I caught sight of him it was not on the spur I had descended but farther up the quarry two things I now realized one was I could not make the easy end of the pinnacle ridge without exposing myself on some particularly bare ground the other was that to my left in the ridge was a deep gully which looked climbable moreover the foot of that gully was not a hundred yards from the burn and the mouth was so deep that a man could find shelter as soon as he entered it for a moment I could not see Medina I don't think he had yet caught sight of me there was a trickling of water coming down from the gully to the burn that gave me an apology for cover I ground my nose into the flow moss and let the water trickle down my neck as it squirmed my way up praying hard the enemy's eyes might be sealed I think I had got about half way when a turn gave me a view of the quarry and there was Medina halted and looking towards me by the mercy of Providence my boots were out of sight and my head a little lower than my shoulders so that I suppose among the sand and the gravel and rushes I must be hard to detect he had used his telescope I think he must have spotted me though I'm not certain I saw him staring I saw him half raise his rifle to his shoulder while I heard my heart thump then he lowered his weapon and moved out of sight two minutes later I was inside the gully the place like a cave with a sandy floor and then came a steep pitch of rock while the sides narrowed into a chimney this was not very difficult I swung myself up into the second stowee and found that the cleft was so deep that the back wall was about 3 yards from the opening so that I climbed in almost complete darkness and in complete safety from view this went on for about 50 feet and then after a rather awkward chalk stone I came to a fork the branch on the left looked homeless while that on the right seemed to offer some chances but I stopped to consider for I remembered something I remembered that this was the chimney which I had prospected 3 weeks ago before when I climbed the pinnacle ridge I had prospected it from above and I come to the conclusion that while the left fork might be climbed the right was impossible or nearly so for modestly as it began it ran out into a fearsome crack on the face of the cliff and did not become a chimney again till after 100 feet of unclimbable rotten granite so I tried the left fork which looked horribly unpromising the first trouble was a chalk stone which I managed to climb around and then the confounded thing widened and became perpendicular I remembered that I had believed a way could be found by taking to the right hand face in an excitement of a climb I had forgotten all precautions it simply did not occur to me that this face route might bring me in sight of the eyes which at all costs I must avoid but it was not an easy business for there was an extreme poverty of decent holds but I have done worse pitches in my time and had I not had a rifle to carry I had no sling might have thought less of it very soon I was past the worst and saw my way to returning to the chimney which had once more become reasonable I had stopped for a second to prospect my route with my foot on a sound ledge and my right elbow crooked round a jag of rock and my left hand which held the rifle stretched out so that my fingers could test the soundness of a certain hold suddenly I felt the power go out of those fingers the stones seemed to crumble and splinter flew into my eye there was a crashing of echoes which drowned the noise of my rifle as it clattered down into the preface of this I remember looking at my hand spread equal against the rock and wondered why it looked so strange the light was beginning to fail so it must have been half past seven seven thirty and onwards had anything of the sort happened to me during an ordinary climb I should beyond doubt have lost my footing with the shock and fallen but being pursued I suppose my nerves were keyed to a perpetual expectancy and I did not slip the fear of a second bullet saved my life in a trice I was back in the chimney and the second bullet spent itself harmlessly on the granite, immersively it was now easier going honest knee and back work which I could manage in spite of my shattered fingers I climbed feverishly with a cold sweat on my brow but every muscle was in order and I knew I could make no mistake the chimney was deep and the ledge of rock hid me from my enemy below presently I squeezed through a gap swung myself with my right hand and my knees to a shelf and saw that the difficulties were over a shallow gully filled with screes led up the crest of the ridge and was the place I had looked on three weeks before I examined my left hand which was a horrid mess the top of my thumb was blown off and the two top joints of my middle and third fingers were smashed to a pulp I felt no pain in them though they were dripping blood but I had a queer numbness in my left shoulder I managed to bind the hand up in the handkerchief where it married a gory bundle then I tried to collect my wits Medina was coming up the chimney after me he knew I had no rifle he was as I had heard an expert cragsman and he was the younger man by at least ten years my first thought was to make for the upper part of the pinnacle ridge and try to hide or elude him somehow till the darkness but he could follow me in the transparent northern night I must soon weaken from loss of blood I could not hope to put significant distance between us for safety and he had his deadly rifle somewhere in the night or the dawning he would get me no I must stay and fight it out could I hold the chimney I had no weapons but stones but I might be able to prevent a man ascending by those intricate rocks in the chimney at any rate there was cover and he could not use his rifle but would he try the chimney why should he go round by the lower slopes of the pinnacle ridge and come up from above me it was the dread of his bullets that decided me my one passionate longing was for cover I might get him in a place where his rifle was useless and I had a chance to use my greater muscular strength I did not care what happened to me provided I got my hands on him behind all my fear and confusion and pain now there was a cold flurry of rage so I slipped back into this chimney and descended to where it turned slightly to the left past a nose of rock here I had cover I could peer down into the darkening depths of the Great Way Warrior a purple haze filled the quarry and the macri tops were like dull amethysts the sky was a cloudy blue sprinkled with stars and mingling with the last flush of sunset was the first hide of the afterglow at first all was quiet in the gully and I heard the faint trickling of stones which are always falling in such a place and once the croak of a hungry raven was my enemy there? did he know of the easier route of a pinnacle ridge? would he not assume that if I could climb the cleft he could follow and would he feel any dread of a man with no gun and a shattered hand then far below came a sound I recognized iron hobnails on rock I began to collect loose stones and made a little pile of such ammunition beside me I realized that Medina had begun the iscent of the lower pitches every breach in the stillness was perfectly clear the steady scraping in the chimney the fall of fragment of rock as he surmounted the lower chalk stone the scraping again as he was forced out onto the containing wall the light must have been poor but the road was plain of course I saw nothing of him for the bulge prevented me what my ears told me the story there was silence I realized that he had come to the place where the chimney forked I had my stones ready for I had hoped to get him when he was driven out on the face at the overhang the spot where I had been when he fired the sounds began again and I waited in a desperate choking calm in a minute or two would come the crisis I remember that the afterglow was on macroe tops and made a pale light in the quarry below in the cleft there was still a kind of dim twilight any moment I suspected to see a dark thing in movement 50 feet below which would be Medina's head but it did not come the noise of scraped rock still continued but it seemed to draw no near that I realized that I had misjudged the earlier situation Medina had taken the right hand fork he was bound to unless he had made like me an earlier reconnaissance my route in the half-lit light must have looked starkly impossible the odds were now on my side no man in the fast gathering darkness could hope to climb the face of a cliff and rejoin that chimney after its interruption he would go on till he struck and then it would not be too easy to get back I re-ascended my own cleft for I had a notion that I might traverse across the space between the two forks and find a vantage point of view very slowly and painfully for my left arm was beginning to burn like fire in my left shoulder and neck to feel strangely paralyzed I wriggled across the steep face till I'd found a sort of ganarmé of rock beyond which the cliff fell smoothly to the lip of the other fork the great gully below was now a pit of darkness but the afterglow still lingered on this upper section and I saw clearly where Medina's chimney lay where it narrowed and where it came out I fixed myself so as to prevent myself from falling for I feared that I was becoming lightheaded then I remembered Angus' rope, got it, unrolled and took a coil around my waist and made a hitch over the ganarmé there was a smothering cry from below and suddenly came the ring of metal on stone and then a clatter of something falling I knew what it meant Medina's rifle had gone the way of mine and lay now among the boulder at the chimney foot at last we stood on equal terms and befogged as my mind was I saw that nothing now could stand between us in a settlement it seemed to me that I saw something moving in the half light if it was Medina he had the left chimney and was trying the face the way I knew there was no hope he would be forced back to realize the folly of it and descend now that his rifle had gone my hatred had ebbed I seemed only to be watching a fellow mountaineer in a quandary he could not have been 40 feet from me for I heard his quick breathing he was striving hard for holds and the rock must have been rotten for there was a continuous dropping of fragments and once a considerable boulder go back man I cried instinctively back to the chimney you can't get further that way I suppose he heard me for he made a more violent effort and I thought I could see him sprawl at a foothold which he was missing and then swing out on his hands he was evidently weakening for I heard a sob of wearing this if he could not regain the chimney there was 300 feet of a fall to the boulders of the foot Medina I yelled I have a rope I'm going to send it down to you get your arm in the loop I made a noose at the end with my teeth in my right hand working with a manic's fury I'll fling it out straight I cried catch it when it falls to you my cast was good enough but he let it pass the rope dangled down to the abyss oh dammit man I roared you can trust me we'll have it out when I get you safe you'll break your neck if you hang there again I threw and suddenly the rope tightened he believed my word and I think that was the greatest compliment ever paid me in all my days now you're held I cried I got a belay here try and climb back into the chimney he understood and began to move but his arms and legs must have been numb with fatigue for suddenly that happened which I feared there was a wild slipping and plunging then it swung out limply missing the chimney right on the smooth wall of the cliff there was nothing for it but to haul him back I knew Angus's ropes too well to have any confidence in them and I only had one good hand the rope ran through a groove of stone which I had covered with my coat and I hoped to work it even with a single arm by moving slowly upwards I'll pull you up I yelled but for God's sake give me some help don't hang on the rope more than you need my loop was a large one and I think he had got both arms around it he was a monstrous weight limp and dead as a sack for though I could feel him scraping and kicking at the cliff face the rock was too smooth for fissures I held the rope with my feet planted against boulders and wrought till my muscles cracked inch by inch I was drawing him in till I realized the danger my rope was grating on the sharp brink beyond the chimney any moment we cut like a knife's edge Medina my voice must have been like a wild animal scream this is too dangerous I'm going to let you down a bit so that you can traverse there's a sort of ledge down there for heaven's sakes go canny with this rope I slipped the belay from the gnarme and hideously difficult it was then I moved farther down to a little platform near the chimney this gave me about 60 extra yards now I cried when I had to let him slip down a little to your left do you feel the ledge he had found some sort of foothold and for the moment there was a relaxation of the strain the rope swayed to my right toward the chimney and I began to see a glimmer of hope cheer out I cried once in the chimney you're safe sing out when you reach it the answer out of the darkness was a sob I think gettiness must have overtaken him or that atrophy of muscle which is the peril of rock climbing suddenly the rope scorched my fingers and a shock came on my middle which dragged me to the very end of the abyss I still believe that I could have saved him if I had the use of both my hands for I could have guided the rope away from the fatal knife edge but I knew it was hopeless but I put every ounce of strength and will into the effort to swing it with its burden to the chimney he gave me no help for I think I hope that he was unconscious next second the strands had parted I fell back with a sound in my ears which I pray thought I may never hear again the sound of a body rebounding dolly from crag to crag and then a long soft rumbling of screes like a snow slip I managed to crawl a few yards to the anchorage of the gunarmé before my senses departed there in the morning Mary and Angus End of Chapter 21 Part 2 End End of the Three Hostages by John Buchan