"Just what I was goin' to say. My instructions is, reserve your fire, and don't loose off till you have a man up against the end o' your barrel."
"Good Lord, we'll get into a horrible row. The whole thing may be a mistake, and we'll be had up for wholesale homicide. No man shall fire unless I give the word."
The Commander-in-Chief looked at him darkly. Some bitter retort was on his tongue, but he restrained himself.
"It appears," he said, "that ye think I'm doin' all this for fun. I'll no 'argy wi' ye. There can be just the one general in a battle, but I'll give ye permission to say the word when to fire.... Macgreegor!" he muttered, a strange expletive only used in moments of deep emotion. "I'll wager ye'll be for sayin' the word afore I'd say it mysel'."
He turned to the Princess. "I hand over to you, till I am back, for I maun be off and see to the Die-Hards. I wish I could bring them in here, but I daren't lose my communications. I'll likely get in by the boiler-house skylight when I come back, but it might be as well to keep a road open here unless ye're actually attacked."
Dougal clambered over the mattresses and the grand piano; a flicker of waning daylight appeared for a second as he squeezed through the door, and Sir Archie was left staring at the wrathful countenance of McGuffog. He laughed ruefully.
"I've been in about forty battles, and here's that little devil rather worried about my pluck, and talkin' to me like a corps commander to a newly joined second-lieutenant. All the same he's a remarkable child, and we'd better behave as if we were in for a real shindy. What do you think, Princess?"
"I think we are in for what you call a shindy. I am in command, remember. I order you to serve out the guns."
This was done, a shot-gun and a hundred cartridges to each, while McGuffog, who was a marksman, was also given a sporting Mannlicher, and two other rifles, a .303 and a small-bore Holland, were kept in reserve in the hall. Sir Archie, free from Dougal's compelling presence, gave the gamekeeper peremptory orders not to shoot till he was bidden, and Carfrae at the kitchen door was warned to the same effect. The shuttered house, where the only light apart from the garden-room was the feeble spark of the electric torches, had the most disastrous effect upon his spirits. The gale which roared in the chimney and eddied among the rafters of the hall seemed an infernal commotion in a tomb.
