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Prester John-Part1_John Buchan(1875-1940)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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nonsense, Davie. The Bible says that the children of Ham were



to be our servants. If I were the minister I wouldn't let a

nigger into the pulpit. I wouldn't let him farther than the



Sabbath school.'

Night fell as we came to the broomy spaces of the links, and



ere we had breasted the slope of the neck which separates

Kirkcaple Bay from the cliffs it was as dark as an April evening



with a full moon can be. Tam would have had it darker. He

got out his lantern, and after a prodigious waste of matches



kindled the candle-end inside, turned the dark shutter, and

trotted happily on. We had no need of his lighting till the Dyve



Burn was reached and the path began to descend steeply

through the rift in the crags.



It was here we found that some one had gone before us.

Archie was great in those days at tracking, his ambition



running in Indian paths. He would walk always with his head

bent and his eyes on the ground, whereby he several times



found lost coins and once a trinket dropped by the provost's

wife. At the edge of the burn, where the path turns downward,



there is a patch of shingle washed up by some spate. Archie

was on his knees in a second. 'Lads,' he cried, 'there's spoor



here;' and then after some nosing, 'it's a man's track, going

downward, a big man with flat feet. It's fresh, too, for it



crosses the damp bit of gravel, and the water has scarcely filled

the holes yet.'



We did not dare to question Archie's woodcraft, but it

puzzled us who the stranger could be. In summer weather you



might find a party of picnickers here, attracted by the fine hard

sands at the burn mouth. But at this time of night and season



of the year there was no call for any one to be trespassing on

our preserves. No fishermen came this way, the lobster-pots



being all to the east, and the stark headland of the Red Neb

made the road to them by the water's edge difficult. The tan-



work lads used to come now and then for a swim, but you

would not find a tan-work lad bathing on a chill April night.



Yet there was no question where our precursor had gone. He

was making for the shore. Tam unshuttered his lantern, and



the steps went clearly down the corkscrew path. 'Maybe he is

after our cave. We'd better go cannily.'



The glim was dowsed - the words were Archie's - and in

the best contraband manner we stole down the gully. The



business had suddenly taken an eerie turn, and I think in our

hearts we were all a little afraid. But Tam had a lantern, and it



would never do to turn back from an adventure which had all

the appearance of being the true sort. Half way down there is



a scrog of wood, dwarf alders and hawthorn, which makes an

arch over the path. I, for one, was glad when we got through



this with no worse mishap than a stumble from Tam which

caused the lantern door to fly open and the candle to go out.



We did not stop to relight it, but scrambled down the screes

till we came to the long slabs of reddish rock which abutted on



the beach. We could not see the track, so we gave up the

business of scouts, and dropped quietly over the big boulder



and into the crinkle of cliff which we called our cave.

There was nobody there, so we relit the lantern and examined



our properties. Two or three fishing-rods for the burn,

much damaged by weather; some sea-lines on a dry shelf of



rock; a couple of wooden boxes; a pile of driftwood for fires,

and a heap of quartz in which we thought we had found veins



of gold - such was the modest furnishing of our den. To this I

must add some broken clay pipes, with which we made believe



to imitate our elders, smoking a foul mixture of coltsfoot leaves

and brown paper. The band was in session, so following our



ritual we sent out a picket. Tam was deputed to go round the

edge of the cliff from which the shore was visible, and report



if the coast was clear.

He returned in three minutes, his eyes round with amazement



in the lantern light. 'There's a fire on the sands,' he

repeated, 'and a man beside it.'



Here was news indeed. Without a word we made for the

open, Archie first, and Tam, who had seized and shuttered his



lantern, coming last. We crawled to the edge of the cliff and

peered round, and there sure enough, on the hard bit of sand



which the tide had left by the burn mouth, was a twinkle of

light and a dark figure.






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