The water-door of the cave was now entirely filled by a black bulk, in shape like a grizzly ape. Even in the flickering light I knew instantly that I had seen the monster before. A thrill ran through me when I remembered the man-beast, the thing with which I had grappled in the barn of Culzean the night I out-faced the Grey Man. And now by the silence and the crouching of the horde beneath me, I learned that their master had come home. The monster stood a moment in the doorway as though angered at something, then he spoke in a voice like a beast's growl, certain things which I could not at all understand—though it was clear that his progeny did, for there ensued a tumultuous rushing from side to side. Then Sawny Bean strode into the midst of his den. It happened that by misadventure he stumbled and set his foot upon a lad of six or seven, judging by the size of him, who sprawled naked in the doorway. The imp squirmed round like a serpent and bit Sawny Bean in the leg, whereat he stooped, and catching the lad by the feet, he dashed his head with a dull crash against the wall, and threw him quivering like a dead rabbit into the corner.
The rest stood for a moment aghast. But in a trice, and without a single one so much as going to see if the boy were dead or only stunned, the whole hornet's byke hummed again, and the place was filled with a stifling smell of burning fat and roasting victual, upon the origin of which I dared not let my mind for a moment dwell.
When Sawny Bean came in, he had that which looked like a rich cloth of gold over his arm—the plunder of some poor butchered wretch, belike. He stood with this trophy in front of him, examining it before the fire. Presently he threw it over his shoulders, with the arms hanging idly down in front, and strode about most like a play-actor or a mad person—but manifestly to his own great content and to the huge admiration of his followers, who stood still and gaped after him.
When he had satisfied himself with this posturing, the monster looked towards our place of refuge. A great spasm seized my heart when I saw him take the first step towards us, for I guessed that it was his forbidden treasure-house in which we lurked.
So I thought it had certainly come to the last bitter push with us. But something yet more terrible than the matter of the boy diverted for the moment the monster's attention. The lad whom he had cast to the side had been left alone, none daring to meddle. But now, as he passed him, Sawny Bean gave the body a toss with his foot. At this, quick as a darting falcon on the stoop, a woman sprang at him from, a crevice where she had been crouching—at least by her shape she was a woman, with long elf-locks twisting like snakes about her brow and over her shoulders. She held an open knife in her hand, and she struck at the chieftain's hairy breast. I heard the point strike the flesh, and the cry of anger and pain which followed. But the monster caught the woman by the wrist, pulled her over his knee, and bent back her head. It was a horrid thing to see, and there is small wonder that I can see it yet in many a dream of the night. And no doubt also I shall see it till I die—hear it as well, which is worse.
Then for a long season I could look no more. But when I had recovered me a little, and could again command my heart, I saw a great part of the crew swarm thick as flies—fetching, carrying, and working like bees upon spilled honey about the corner where had lain the bodies of the lad and the woman. But it was not in the ordinary way that these were being prepared for burial. In the centre of the cave sat Sawny Bean, with some of the younger sort of the women pawing over him and bandaging his wounded shoulder. He was growling and spitting inarticulately all the while like a wild cat. And every time his shoulder hurt him as the women worked with the wound and mouthed it, he would take his other hand and strike one of them down, as though it was to her that he owed the twinge of pain.
Presently the monster arose and took the gold brocade again in his hand. I thought that of a certainty now our time was come, and I looked at Nell Kennedy.
God knows what was in my eyes. My heart within me was ready to break, for the like of this pass had never man been in. That I should have to smite my love to the death within an hour of my first kiss and the first owning of her affection.
But she that loved me read my thought in mine eyes.
She bared her neck for me, so that I could see its tender whiteness in the flicker of the fire.
'Strike there,' she said, 'and let me die in your arms, who art my own heart's love, Launcelot Kennedy.'
I heard the beast-man's step on the stair. I looked from Nell's dear neck to her eyes and back again to her bosom. Then I lifted my hand with the steel in it, and nerved myself for the striking, for I must make no mistake. And even in that moment I saw the gleam of a dagger in Marjorie's hand also.
Suddenly a tremendous rush of sound filled the cave. The blade fell from my hand, and by instinct, not knowing what we did, Nell and I clasped one another. The clamour seemed to be about us and all round us. Roaring echoes came back to us. The bowels of the earth quaked. Yet methought there was something strongly familiar in the sound of it. I turned me about, and there, standing erect with all his little height was the Dominie. His cheeks were distended, and he was blowing upon his great war-pipes such a thunderous pibroch as never had been heard east of the Minch since the island pipes skirled on the Red Harlaw.
What madcap possession had come upon his mind, I know not. But the effect I can tell. The pack of fiends that caroused and slew beneath, stood stricken a moment in amaze at the dreadful, incomprehensible sounds. Then they fled helter-skelter, yellyhooing with fear, down the narrow sea-way from which the tide had now fully ebbed. And when I looked again, there was not a soul to be seen. Only over the edge of a lappered cauldron the body of the murdered woman (or, at least, a part of it), lay doubled—a bloody incentive to make haste out of this direful Cave of Death.
The Dominie stepped down from our hidden alcove as though he had been leading a march, strutting and passaging like the King's piper marching about the banqueting table at Holyrood. I declare the creature seemed 'fey.' He was certainly possessed with a devil. But the very fearlessness of the deed won into our veins also, for with steel or pistol in each of our hands we marched after him—ready, and, indeed, eager, to encounter aught that might come in our way. Ay, and even thus we passed out of the cave, hasting down the long passage without a quiver of the heart or a blenching of the cheek—so suddenly and so starkly, by way of unexpected hope, had the glorious music brought the hot blood back to our hearts, even as it had stricken our cruel foes with instant terror.
Thus dryshod we marched out of the cave of Sawny Bean, and, as I am a true man, not so much as a dog barked at us. But when we emerged into the grey of a stormy morning and reached the cliff's edge, we heard inland the wild voices of the gang yelling down the wind, as though the furies of fear were still pursuing them and tearing at their vitals. What they expected I know not, but I conceive that they must have taken the Dominie's pipes for whatever particular devil they happened to believe in, come to take them quick to their own place. Which, after all, could not be much worse than the den in which we had seen them at their disport. Nor could all the torturing fiends of lowest hell have been their marrows in devilish cruelty.