Book V

A RITUAL AT MIDNIGHT

RUPERT'S JOURNAL--Continued.
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 American Republics an armoured yacht which had been
especially built for war service. He grew quite enthusiastic,