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NOW that their faces were turned homeward, they perceived that their way back lay along the top of a narrow neck of land connecting the house and the rock on which it was built with the main body of the island. On gaining the crest of the spur from which the major-domo had hailed them, they came in sight of the castle, surrounded on three sides by the loch and sheltered from the east wind by old Ben Dhu's fir-girt flanks, which rose precipitously from the miniature peninsula on the one side to drop sheer to the loch on the other. Between loch and Flow the castle seemed to crouch, its neglected gardens, behind the high grey wall, spread out in rear at the foot of the eminence from which the two Americans looked down.
By tacit accord both halted to contemplate the hoary buildings cluste
