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
BINABASA MO ANG
The Lady of the Shroud
VampirosAdrift off the coast of the fictional Blue Mountains is a small coffin containing a white-shrouded woman. She rises, soaking wet, from the sea, and seeks refuge in the Castle of Vissarion in the middle of the night. The rich young Rupert Leger lets...