The Greatest Historical Novels & Romances of D. K. Broster. D. K. Broster

you are now on your way back from Perth. Are you carrying despatches from Lord Albemarle to His Royal Highness, or are you empty-handed?”

      “I have a letter, of no particular moment, from Lord Albemarle to the Duke,” replied Keith more warily.

      “You have, at any rate, a despatch, sir. You have passed this place already on your way to Inverness, carrying it. Some hours later you are back again, making fresh enquiries about a rebel. Had you confided your despatch to another hand in the interval?”

      “No, my Lord,” confessed Keith. “Knowing that the matter was not urgent, and that it was impossible for me to reach Inverness to-night, I resolved to lie at the General’s Hut. There I heard something which determined me to have more reliable news of Mr. Cameron of Ardroy, to whom I owe it that I am alive at all to-day. Instead of going to bed at the General’s Hut I rode back here, and whether I start from Boleskine at six or from Fort Augustus at half-past four, Lord Albemarle’s letter will reach His Royal Highness’s hands at exactly the same hour.”

      “You seem to have a strangely easy idea of your military duties, Major Windham,” commented Lord Loudoun, drumming on the table. “May I ask how long you have borne His Majesty’s commission?”

      “Twelve years,” answered Keith curtly.

      “And in all those years you have not learnt the sacredness of a despatch! You are entrusted with one to the Commander-in-Chief, and you take upon yourself to turn back in order to assure yourself of the welfare of a rebel prisoner!—Is it true that this man has made a disclosure?” he asked suddenly of Captain Greening.

      “Quite true, my Lord,” responded the fair young officer. “I have notes of it here; it was one of the matters which I desired to bring to your Lordship’s notice. It relates to Lochiel’s hiding-place near Loch Arkaig, and will prove of the greatest service in your Lordship’s future operations.”

      At that reply all thoughts of his own situation abandoned Keith; he was caught up again in a wave of fury and shame. “My God!” he cried, striding forward, his eyes fixed on Captain Greening, “are there devils here too? You have tortured him into it . . . never deny it, I’ll not believe you! As well be in a camp of Red Indians or African savages! Inverness was bad enough, with its prisons stuffed with purposely neglected wounded; then that man Guthrie, and now——”

      Lord Loudoun sprang up, very threatening of aspect. “Major Windham, may I ask you to remember where you are! I’ll not be spoken to in such a manner!”

      “I was not addressing you, my Lord,” said Keith fiercely. “I know that you only reached Fort Augustus this morning. You are not responsible for what has been going on—God knows what it was—before you came. But this officer here——”

      “Be silent, sir!” shouted the Earl of Loudoun. “Neither will I have aspersions cast on officers now under my command . . . and by a member of General Hawley’s staff, too! Are your own hands so clean, pray? You do not deserve that I should reply to your insinuations, but—Captain Greening, was this information got from the Cameron prisoner by unlawful means?”

      “No, my Lord, I assure you that it was not. He gave it . . . voluntarily.” But again there was that little smile.

      “There, you hear, sir!” said the Earl. “Your charges——”

      “I don’t believe it,” said Keith in the same moment. “I will not believe it until I hear it from Ardroy himself.”

      And at that Lord Loudoun completely lost his temper. “God’s name, am I to suffer you to browbeat me in my own tent?—you, who have just behaved in a manner unpardonable in a soldier! Major Windham, I place you under arrest for insubordination. You will kindly give up your sword!”

      It was as if a douche of cold water had descended on Keith’s head. His left hand went to his sword-hilt. “Insubordination, my Lord? No, I protest!”

      “Very well, it shall be for neglect of duty, then,” said the Earl, still very angry. “Lord Albemarle’s despatch is in truth not safe with a man who can go twenty miles out of his way while carrying it. I shall send it on by one of my own aides-de-camp to-night. Give it up at once, if you do not wish to be searched. Captain Munro, call a guard!”

      Like rain upon a bonfire, the cold douche had, after a temporary extinction, only inflamed Keith Windham’s rage. He unhooked his sword, scabbard and all, and flung it at Loudoun’s feet, saying that he was glad to be rid of it. By this time—seeing too that the falling weapon had nearly caught his Lordship on the toes—every officer in the tent was rushing towards him. “Reassure yourselves, gentlemen,” said Keith, laughing angrily, and, opening his uniform, took out Lord Albemarle’s despatch and tendered it to the nearest. Then, without more ado, he followed the guard out into the rain, his last memory, as he left the lighted tent, not of Lord Loudoun’s affronted, angry face, but of Captain Greening’s, with that sly, secretly amused smile round his girlish mouth.

      CHAPTER III

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      The early morning bugle, close at hand, woke Keith Windham with a start. He had had little sleep during the night, and was all the deeper buried now. Where was he? He stared round the tent—an unfamiliar one. Then he remembered.

      And all that endless day he sat in his canvas prison and did little else save remember. For the first time in his life he was in the midst of camp routine without a share in it—with no right to a share in it. No sword hung upon the tent-pole, and a sentry paced outside whose business was not to keep intruders out, but him in.

      Had he not still been sustained by rage he might have felt more dejection than he did. The rage was not against Lord Loudoun, to whose severity he could not deny some justification, nor was it on his own account; it was against the effeminate Captain Greening and other persons unknown. Not for a moment did he believe that officer’s half-sniggering asseveration of voluntary betrayal on the part of Ewen Cameron . . . though at times the other alternative haunted him so horribly that he almost wished he could believe it. Far better to have let Ardroy go down riddled by bullets on the mountain-side than to have saved him for agony and dishonour; far better had he not come upon him in time!

      And where was Ardroy? Unable to make personal investigations, Keith could not well ask the soldier who brought him his meals. And, even if he discovered, even if he were allowed an interview with the prisoner—very improbable now—was he so sure that he himself wanted it? Could he bear to see the Highlander again, in the state which must be his by now?

      His own plight seemed negligible by comparison. He thought of it, indeed, but only with a sort of dull wonder. Up till now his own advancement had been for him the one star in a grey heaven. Now the heaven was black and there was no star at all.

      A rainy yellow sunset was smearing the sky when the flap of the tent was pulled aside and an officer came in—a very stiff young aide-de-camp.

      “I am to inform you, sir,” he said, “that as this tent is required to-night a room has been prepared for you in the fort. And Major-General Lord Loudoun supposes that rather than be marched through the camp under escort, you will agree to make no attempt to escape en route, in which case I am to conduct you there now myself.”

      “His Lordship is extremely considerate,” replied Keith. “I am only surprised that he is willing to rely on my word. But no doubt he is aware that I should hardly better my situation by deserting.”

      “Then if you will kindly follow me,” said the aide-de-camp still more stiffly, “I will lead you to the fort.”

      But, for all his own sarcastic words, for all the absence of an escort, Keith did not enjoy that short journey very much. Everyone whom they met, either among the tents or on the brief stretch of muddy road, must know why he went thus without a sword and whither he was going; and it was with some instinct of avoiding their scrutiny that he tried to lag behind two lieutenants