The Lady of the Shroud

Chapter 5

RUPERT'S JOURNAL--Continued.

                                          & nbsp;               June 20, 1907.

The time has gone as quickly as work can effect since I saw my Lady.  As

I told the mountaineers, Rooke, whom I had sent on the service, had made

a contract for fifty thousand Ingis-Malbron rifles, and as many tons of

ammunition as the French experts calculated to be a full supply for a

year of warfare.  I heard from him by our secret telegraph code that the

order had been completed, and that the goods were already on the way.

The morning after the meeting at the Flagstaff I had word that at night

the vessel--one chartered by Rooke for the purpose--would arrive at

Vissarion during the night.  We were all expectation.  I had always now

in the Castle a signalling party, the signals being renewed as fast as

the men were sufficiently expert to proceed with their practice alone or

in groups.  We hoped that every fighting-man in the country would in time

become an expert signaller.  Beyond these, again, we have always a few

priests.  The Church of the country is a militant Church; its priests are

soldiers, its Bishops commanders.  But they all serve wherever the battle

most needs them.  Naturally they, as men of brains, are quicker at

learning than the average mountaineers; with the result that they learnt

the code and the signalling almost by instinct.  We have now at least one

such expert in each community of them, and shortly the priests alone will

be able to signal, if need be, for the nation; thus releasing for active

service the merely fighting-man.  The men at present with me I took into

confidence as to the vessel's arrival, and we were all ready for work

when the man on the lookout at the Flagstaff sent word that a vessel

without lights was creeping in towards shore.  We all assembled on the

rocky edge of the creek, and saw her steal up the creek and gain the

shelter of the harbour.  When this had been effected, we ran out the boom

which protects the opening, and after that the great armoured

sliding-gates which Uncle Roger had himself had made so as to protect the

harbour in case of need.

We then came within and assisted in warping the steamer to the side of

the dock.

Rooke looked fit, and was full of fire and vigour.  His responsibility

and the mere thought of warlike action seemed to have renewed his youth.

When we had arranged for the unloading of the cases of arms and

ammunition, I took Rooke into the room which we call my "office," where

he gave me an account of his doings.  He had not only secured the rifles

and the ammunition for them, but he had purchased from one of the small