"What's your name?" the voice was asking.
"Tell me yours first," Dickson essayed to stutter between spasms of nausea.
"My name is Alexander Nicholson," was the answer.
"Then you're no' the man." It was a cry of wrath and despair.
"You're a very desperate little chap. For whom had I the honour to be mistaken?"
Dickson had now wriggled into a sitting position and had clasped his hands above his aching head.
"I thought you were a Russian, name of Paul," he groaned.
"Just Paul. A Bolshevik and an awful bad lot."
Dickson could not see the change which his words wrought in the other's face. He found himself picked up in strong arms and carried to a bog-pool where his battered face was carefully washed, his throbbing brows laved, and a wet handkerchief bound over them. Then he was given brandy in the socket of a flask, which eased his nausea. The cyclist ran his bicycle to the roadside, and found a seat for Dickson behind the turf-dyke of the old bucht.
"Now you are going to tell me everything," he said. "If the Paul who is your enemy is the Paul I think him, then we are allies."
But Dickson did not need this assurance. His mind had suddenly received a revelation. The Princess had expected an enemy, but also a friend. Might not this be the long-awaited friend, for whose sake she was rooted to Huntingtower with all its terrors?
"Are you sure you name's no' Alexis?" he asked.
"In my own country I was called Alexis Nicolaevitch, for I am a Russian. But for some years I have made my home with your folk, and I call myself Alexander Nicholson, which is the English form. Who told you about Alexis?"
"Give me your hand," said Dickson shamefacedly. "Man, she's been looking for you for weeks. You're terribly behind the fair."
"She!" he cried. "For God's sake tell me all you know."
"Ay, she--the Princess. But what are we havering here for? I tell you at this moment she's somewhere down about the old Tower, and there's boatloads of blagyirds landing from the sea. Help me up, man, for I must be off. The story will keep. Losh, it's very near the darkening. If you're Alexis, you're just about in time for a battle."
But Dickson on his feet was but a frail creature. He was still deplorably giddy, and his legs showed an unpleasing tendency to crumple. "I'm fair done," he moaned. "You see, I've been tied up all day to a tree and had two sore bashes on my head. Get you on that bicycle and hurry on, and I'll hirple after you the best I can. I'll direct you the road, and if you're lucky you'll find a Die-Hard about the village. Away with you, man, and never mind me."