Archie, as ever, kept his wits the best of us.

'Make straight for the burn,' he shouted in a hoarse whisper; we'll beat him on the slope.' We passed the boulders and slithered over the outcrop of red rock and the patches of sea-pink till we reached the channel of the Dyve water, which flows gently among pebbles after leaving the gully.

Here for the first time I looked back and saw nothing.

I stopped involuntarily, and that halt was nearly my undoing.

For our pursuer had reached the burn before us, but lower down, and was coming up its bank to cut us off.
At most times I am a notable coward, and in these days I was still more of one, owing to a quick and easily-heated imagination.