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

floated backwards to the Englishman’s ears bearing, so he thought, the word ‘Cameron’. Instantly he strained his ears to catch more; perhaps they were discussing Ardroy. As he drew still nearer he found that he was mistaken, but that one officer must be concluding an account of his experiences in a scouting party from which he had recently returned.

      “. . . The same everywhere by Loch Lochy; and there’s not a doubt the rebels are much more numerous in that neighbourhood than we had any notion of—Camerons and MacDonalds, too. ’Tis thought they even contemplate making a stand in a few days’ time. His Lordship will be sending out a fresh reconnaissance . . .”

      Here they passed the speaker, and the rest was lost, but what he had heard did not particularly interest Major Windham. Only one Cameron was in his mind at present.

      And now they were at the shell of the fort, where the remains of the burnt-out buildings within the enceinte hardly looked as if they could afford any accommodation at all.

      “I suppose,” said Keith carelessly to his guide, “that the rebel prisoners, if you have any, are confined here?”

      “Yes. But you must not think, sir,” explained the ever correct aide-de-camp, “that Lord Loudoun has any wish to put your case on a level with theirs. We are indeed short of tents, and you will not, I believe, find the room assigned to you in the fort any less comfortable.”

      Keith thanked him for the assurance, but he was not really listening. Ewen Cameron was somewhere in this half-ruined enclosure.

      His new quarters turned out to be bare, but not more so, certainly, than the tent. In the night, tossing on the camp bed, he made up his mind that if it proved impossible to obtain access to Ardroy in person, he would at least contrive to get a letter smuggled in to him somehow. Surely he could find a venal sentry or gaoler. He wondered what his own custodian was like, for on arrival, being much absorbed in his own thoughts, he had only received an impression of someone stout and middle-aged.

      Morning and breakfast revealed him; a sergeant who might have been a well-to-do sufferer from gout, so painfully did he hobble in with the meal. Talkative upon encouragement, and apologetic for his bodily shortcomings, he explained that his lameness was due to a wound in the foot received when Fort Augustus was besieged by the Highlanders, he being a sergeant in Guise’s regiment, three companies of which then held it. When they surrendered and marched out, he was left behind. “And though I looked to have my throat cut, sir, by the wild MacDonalds and what not, I was very well treated, and my wound cared for. Is this what you wish for breakfast, sir?”

      “I am not in a position to exercise much choice,” said Keith. “You know that Lord Loudoun has put me under arrest?”

      The stout sergeant seemed shocked at this blunt reference to an unfortunate fact. “If I may presume on your being English, sir, same as I am myself——”

      “You may,” replied Keith.

      “I would say, sir, that it don’t seem right that a Scotchman should be able——” But there he stopped, aware no doubt that he was about to make a remark even blunter.

      Keith could not help smiling. “I think, my friend, that we had better not pursue that subject. May I ask whether it is by a delicate attention of the authorities that you have been detailed to wait upon me?”

      “No, sir; I only come to the fort yesterday, the corporal that was here before having gone off duty sick; and me not being capable of much at present with this foot, I was told off in his place.”

      “Are the ordinary prisoners—the rebels, I mean—in your charge?”

      “Yes, sir, so I find; though there’s only a few, picked up in the last week. Them’s in the rooms below, the dungeons as we call ’em—all but a young man as has been kept by himself at the top of this very building; he’s been ill, I understand.”

      Small doubt who that was. “You have seen this young man already, I suppose, sergeant,” asked Keith, making no attempt to begin his breakfast. “How did he seem? I am interested in him.”

      “Indeed, sir! Well, he looks in but a poor way, and seems very melancholy like.”

      “You do not know . . . you have not heard—anything particular about his previous treatment?” asked Keith, his heart suddenly beating hard. “You have not heard, for instance, that . . . that forcible measures have been used to wring certain information out of him?”

      “Lord, no, sir! Have they so? Yes, ’tis true he looks as though something of the sort might have happened to him, but I put it down to his having been ill with his wound.”

      Keith had turned away his face. “Do you mean,” he said after a moment, “that he is actually in this very corner of the fort?”

      “Yes, sir; up a-top of you, as it were. ’Tis the least damaged portion, and even at that there’s some holes in it. You know them Highlanders used near twenty barrels of powder a-blowing of this place up.—Have you all you want, sir?”

      “By the way,” said Keith, as his attendant was hobbling out, “do not tell the young man—Mr. Cameron of Ardroy—that I was asking about him.”

      “No, sir, I won’t mention of it. Mr. Cameron, is that his name now? Why, ’twas a Dr. Cameron dressed my foot; a very kind gentleman he was, too.”

      Keith’s breakfast was totally cold before he began it, and when the sergeant appeared again he opened his campaign at once. His guardian proved much less obdurate than he had feared. Obdurate indeed he was not; it was quite natural caution on his own behalf which withheld him from acceding sooner to Major Windham’s request to be taken up to see the rebel prisoner ‘up a-top of him’. It was fortunate for Keith’s case that Sergeant Mullins was unaware of the close connection between that prisoner and the English Major’s arrest; he believed the latter to be suffering merely for hot words to General Lord Loudoun, cause unknown. The fact of Keith’s being a fellow-countryman went for something, as did also the remembrance of the Highlanders’ good treatment of himself. Finally he yielded, on condition that he chose his own time for letting the sequestered officer out of his room, and that Major Windham gave him his word of honour not to take any steps to help the rebel to escape. Keith promised without difficulty that he would not even speak of such a thing; it was the past, and not the future, which was more likely to engage his tongue.

      So about six o’clock in the evening he followed his limping guide up the stair and found himself standing, with real dread in his heart, outside a door which the sergeant unlocked, saying to an unseen occupant:

      “I have brought someone to see you, Mr. Cameron.”

      * * * * *

      The room was light and airy—rather too airy, for one wall had in it a good-sized breach, across which a piece of canvas had been stretched in an attempt to keep out rain and wind. Facing the door was a semicircular embrasure pierced with three narrow windows, and having a stone seat running round it. And on the floor of this embrasure, on some sort of a pallet, with his back propped against the seat, his legs stretched out in front of him, and his eyes fixed on the slit of window opposite him (though from his position on the floor he could not have seen anything but a strip of sky) Ewen Cameron was sitting motionless. He did not turn his head or even move his eyes when the door opened and closed again; and Keith stood equally motionless, staring at a haggard and unshaven profile which he found difficulty in recognising.

      At last he took a few steps forward. Ewen turned his head indifferently . . . and then was as suddenly frozen as one who looks on Medusa. There was a long shivering pause.

      “Why are you here . . . Judas?”

      Half prepared though he was, Keith felt slashed across the face. He caught his breath.

      “If I were that, I should not be here,” he answered unsteadily. “I have come . . . I came directly I had news of you, to explain . . . to put right if I could . . .” But the words died on his lips; it seemed a mockery to talk of putting anything right now.

      “To