When eight bells toll (31 page)

I patted her hand and said: "You don't even begin to believe that yourself."  In the circumstances, I thought it better not to say if that gun had gone off I'd never have trusted a three-cornered file again.

The grey mist was slowly clearing away and the dawn coming up on the quiet dark sea when Tim Hutchinson eased the
Firecrest
in towards Eilean Oran.

There were only four of us on the boat, Hutchinson, myself, Mrs, MacEachern and Charlotte. I'd told Charlotte to find a bed in Dubh Sgeir castle for the night, but she'd simply ignored me, helped Mrs. MacEachern on to the
Firecrest
and had made no move to go ashore again. Very self-willed, she was, and I could see that this was going to cause a lot of trouble in the years to come.

Uncle Arthur wasn't with us, a team of wild horses couldn't have dragged Uncle Arthur aboard the
Firecrest
that night. Uncle Arthur was having his foretaste of Paradise, sitting hi front of a log fire in the Dubh Sgeir castle drawing-room, knocking back old Kirkside's superlative whisky and retailing his exploits to a breathless and spell-bound aristocracy. If I were lucky, maybe he'd mention my name a couple of times in the course of his recounting of the epic. On die other hand, maybe he wouldn't.

Mrs. MacEachern wasn't having her foretaste of Paradise, she was there already, a calm dark old lady with a wrinkled brown face who smiled and smiled and smiled alt the way to her home on Eilean Oran, I -hoped to God old Donald MacEachern had remembered to change his shirt.

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