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

I denied that it was correct . . . but there it all was—the secret that only I and one other besides Lochiel himself knew. Never having seen the actual spot myself I had learnt the directions off by heart; ’twas the last thing I did before the battle.” He shuddered violently, and once more dropped his head on to his knee. “O God, that ever I was brought away from Drumossie Moor!”

      “Devils!” said Keith under his breath, “cold-blooded devils!” But who had first suggested that Ardroy should be watched? He sprang up, and began to pace distractedly about the room; but that thought could not so be shaken off. Yet a rather stinging consolation dawned on him: since the prisoner had acknowledged to him, what he had denied to his inquisitors, that the information was correct, he must trust him again—he must indeed, for he had thus put it in his power to go and betray him afresh.

      “You’ll tell me, I suppose,” began Ewen’s dragging voice again, “that a man cannot be expected to control his tongue in sleep, and it is true; he cannot. But they will keep that part out, and Lochiel, all the clan, will hear that I gave the information of my own free will. Is not that what you have been told already?” And as Keith, unable to deny this, did not answer, Ewen went on with passion: “However it was done, it has been done; I have betrayed my Chief, and he will know it. . . . If I were only sure that it would kill me outright, I would crawl to the breach there and throw myself down. I wish I had done it two nights ago!”

      From the camp, where a drum was idly thudding, there came the sound of cheering, and the broken room where this agony beat its wings in vain was flooded with warm light as the sun began to slip down to the sea behind the hills of Morven, miles away. And Keith remembered, with wonder at his obtuseness, that he had once decided that Ewen Cameron was probably a very impassive person. . . .

      What was he to say? For indeed the result of Ardroy’s disclosure might very well be just the same for Lochiel as if he had made it when in full possession of his senses. One argument, however, leapt unbidden to Keith’s lips; his Chief would never believe that Ardroy had willingly betrayed him. Would Ardroy believe such a thing of him, he asked.

      But Ewen shook his head, uncomforted. “Lochiel would not have allowed himself to go to sleep—I did.”

      “But you must have gone to sleep sooner or later!” expostulated Keith. “Lochiel himself would have done the same, for no human being can go very long without sleep.”

      “How do you know?” asked Ewen listlessly. “I cannot sleep now when I wish to . . . when it is of no moment if I do.”

      Keith looked at him in concern. That admission explained a good deal in his appearance. If this continued he might go out of his mind, and yet one was so powerless to help him; for indeed, as Ardroy had said, what was done, was done. He began to pace the room again.

      Suddenly he stopped and swung round. Perhaps he was not so impotent to help after all. Somehow that idle drum, still beating out there, with its suggestion of march and movement, had revived a memory only twenty-four hours old.

      “Listen to me, Ardroy,” he said quickly, coming back and sitting down again. “But tell me first: you would only expect Lochiel to take to this refuge, would you not, if he were skulking, as the phrase goes here, not if he had a considerable body of followers with him?”

      “No,” admitted Ewen, looking faintly surprised. “Only if he were alone, or nearly so. But he is alone, or at the best he can have but a handful with him.”

      “It is there that I think you are wrong,” retorted Keith. “Though that may have been the case at first, it is evidently so no longer. This is what I overheard yesterday.”

      And he told him, word for word, what had fallen from the officer who had been scouting down the Glen. Ardroy listened with the look of a drowning man sighting a distant spar.

      “My God, if only that is true! No, if the clan has rallied somewhat he would not be in hiding. Yet, after a skirmish, or if he were surprised——”

      “But consider,” urged Keith, “that, if they are so numerous, only an attack in force would be possible, and Lochiel could hardly be surprised by that: he would have scouts posted, surely. And after a skirmish, supposing the results unfavourable to him, he would probably withdraw altogether with his men, not go to earth in the neighbourhood. If the place is searched, believe me, it will be found empty!”

      The eagerness with which Ewen hung upon his words was pathetic to witness.

      “You are not,” he asked painfully, “inventing this story . . . out of compassion?”

      “No, no; I heard it exactly as I have told it to you, and I can see no reason why the speaker’s statement should not have been true.”

      (And, whether true or no, he thought, it will have served a very good purpose if it prevents this too tightly stretched string from snapping altogether.)

      Ewen drew a long breath and passed his hand over his eyes as if to wipe out a sight which was too much there. Then his head sank back against the edge of the seat behind him, his hand fell away, and Keith saw that he had fainted, or as near it as made little difference. He supposed that his attentions would be permitted now, and, grabbing up the bowl, dashed some of the water in the Highlander’s face; then, putting his arms round him, succeeded in shifting him so that he could lay him flat upon the pallet.

      But Ardroy was not gone far. In a moment or two he raised a hand to his head as he lay there, and murmured something about a ray of hope. Then his eyes opened, and looking straight up into Keith’s face as he bent over him he said clearly, but with a catch of the breath, “Forgive me—if you can!”

      “I have so much to be forgiven myself,” answered Keith, looking down unhappily at the dirty, haggard wreck of his ‘young Achilles’, “that I can scarce resent what you, of all people, have thought of me. Oh, Ardroy, what a curst tangle it has been!—Are you well like that—your wounded leg . . . ?”

      The blue eyes held on to him. “You have not answered my question. If you could forgive me for so wronging you . . . I know I have said unpardonable things to you . . . you who saved my life!”

      Keith took into his own the hand he had scarred. “Forgotten—if you will forget what I said of you?”

      “But what have I to forget?” asked Ewen, and he suddenly bit his lip to keep it steady. “I think I have to remember! And indeed, indeed, Windham, I did not doubt you lightly! I fought against it; but it all fitted together so devilishly . . . and I was not sound in mind or body. And now—selfish wretch that I am—if you are broke through what you have done for me——”

      But it seemed as if it were a third person who fancied himself in more imminent danger of that fate, for Ardroy had got no farther when there were hasty, hobbling steps outside the door, a fumbling with the lock, and there stood Sergeant Mullins, much flustered.

      “If you please, Major,” he said, sadly out of breath, “will you come away at once? I misdoubt you’ll be found up here if you stay a minute longer, for I saw Lord Loudoun’s aide-de-camp coming along the road—and I shall be sent packing without the pension that’s been promised me!”

      “Go—go quickly, Windham,” said Ewen earnestly. “It will do you no good, either, to be found up here.”

      There was nothing for it. “Yes, I’m coming, Sergeant.—We cannot undo the past, Ardroy, but for God’s sake try to torment yourself less about a calamity which may never befall—a certain person.”

      Ewen looked up at him with a faint, forlorn smile. “And your calamity?” he asked.

      “I must endeavour to take my own advice,” said his visitor rather grimly. “I shall try to see you again if possible . . . that is, if you . . .” he hesitated.

      Ewen’s left hand reached up and gripped his wrist. “You say the past cannot be undone. There are some hours in it which I am glad I can never lose again—that night in the shieling, now I know that you were . . . what at the time I thought you!”

      *