Almond, Wild Almond. D. K. Broster

wielded it, you must accuse the tempest which has so much to answer for. Will you take my arm?”

      Mr. Ranald Maclean’s little apartment, entered in a more conventional manner than he had left it, was almost illumined by the presence of the handsome and uniformed new-comer, wet and a trifle dishevelled though he was. He threw his dripping cloak with a word of apology on to a chair, and going straight to the mirror over the hearth investigated closely a smear on his right check. Ranald, clapping to the casement, hurried out and returned with water and a towel.

      “Nothing!” pronounced the young soldier in a tone of relief after a moment’s dabbing. “Nothing but a scratch, fortunately!”

      “But your head, monsieur?”

      The Frenchman carefully straightened his wig and then shrugged his shoulders. Mr. Maclean had a strong conviction that it was only the possibility of damage to his looks which had caused him concern. “That devil of a gutter fell principally on to my shoulder. I am none the worse—but no less grateful to you, monsieur, for coming to my assistance,” he added politely, “than if you had saved me from an earthquake. Especially,” and here he had the grace to redden a little, “especially as I was sufficiently ill-bred to perpetrate a foolish pleasantry when I passed your window just before. I hope you will accept my sincere apologies for that.”

      The eyes which looked at him were a trifle cold, and the tone, too. “What I caught of your remark, sir, was entirely beside the point. But, naturally, I accept your apology.” The voice became less stiff. “You will take a glass of wine with me, I hope?”

      “Most willingly. Allow me first to present myself—the Vicomte de Lancize of Dauphin-Dragons. You, I think, monsieur, are an Englishman?” (“And not only from your accent!” he thought, with interior amusement.)

      Ranald had bowed slightly. “I am not English; I am a Scot. My name is Maclean.” Going to a cupboard he produced a bottle of Bordeaux and a couple of glasses. “I regret that I have no eau-de-vie to offer you after your accident; it would perhaps be better.” He filled and held out a glass of claret.

      “A thousand thanks,” said M. de Lancize, accepting it. “You are a Scot, Monsieur Maclean? Then I drink to the success of the cause to which I am probably not indiscreet in guessing you pledged!”

      But the Highlander did not drink, did not even fill his glass. “Of what avail is that toast now?” he asked bitterly, flinging out a long arm towards the little window against which the storm-driven rain was at that moment hissing hard. “It is true that I follow that most unfortunate of causes, against which even the elements are leagued. You, too, sir, from your uniform, are of those who were lending it assistance. But how can you help us now? Many of your ships are badly crippled, if what I hear on all sides is true?”

      His dark grey eyes searched the face of M. de Saxe’s aide-de-camp as if hoping against hope for some reassurance. The Vicomte de Lancize set down his emptied glass upon the table without replying. It was embarrassing to know as much as he knew and to be uncertain how much of this unauthorised knowledge should be allowed to appear. These poor devils of Jacobites. . . . On the whole, he shared his commander’s opinion of them in the mass—inept conspirators, unready allies. But this tall, lean young man looked neither inept nor unready, and his words, his very refusal to toss off the easy glass, showed that he was better prepared to face facts than most of his infatuated fellow-partisans.

      “You were about to say, Monsieur de Lancize . . .”

      What was Monsieur de Lancize about to say? To proffer him the naked truth, unpalatable though it were—the truth which perhaps he owed him in return for his assistance and the Bordeaux—or to bring out some soothing evasion? As the young officer hesitated there was distinctly audible, in a lull of the torment outside, the sound of rumbling wheels and of horses’ hoofs clattering on the cobbles. Both ceased, and not because the tempest had outvied them, for next moment a knocking of some urgency was assaulting the outer door of the house.

      The Vicomte de Lancize reached out his hand for his wet cloak. “You have a visitor, I think, Monsieur Maclean” (and some recollection of his ribald comment of a while ago went again through his mind). “Allow me to depart.”

      “No, no,” said the Highlander, listening with a puzzled air. “The knocking cannot be for me. I have but one acquaintance in all Dunkirk. Pray sit down again, monsieur, and give me some light upon the chances of the expedition.”

      But M. de Lancize had hardly complied when the door of the sitting-room opened and the voice of Mr. Maclean’s landlord was heard announcing that there were two gentlemen to wait upon him. The young Frenchman sprang up again, Ranald stared in surprise, and one of the gentlemen in question came forward, a cloak round the lower part of his face. His eyes could be seen to go quickly from Ranald to his visitor.

      “I understood that you were alone, Mr. Maclean,” he said in a somewhat aggrieved tone, and in English.

      “Sir,” put in the Vicomte de Lancize pleasantly, in the same tongue, “in one moment Monsieur Maclean is alone. I take my leave.”

      But the new-comer made a gesture as though to stay him. “On the contrary, sir, I’ll be asking you to remain, if you will have the goodness. It is, I believe, a piece of good fortune which allows me to find you here, since I see by your uniform that you are an officer of His Most Christian Majesty’s, and are therefore of our friends—I speak as a Jacobite.”

      “I have certainly the honour to be both,” returned M. de Lancize politely, observing—as did Ranald Maclean—how the second visitor, even more closely muffled, kept in the background out of the light.

      The Jacobite uncloaked himself. “My name is . . . Malloch. It is my privilege to be in the intimate confidence of the Prince of Wales.”

      “Malloch!” exclaimed both the young men together. But it was the Frenchman who first found speech. “Then are you not, monsieur, the gentleman who was the sole companion of the Prince Charles Edouard on his adventurous journey from Rome? A daring enterprise! Is it possible that I can be of any service to you?”

      “Indeed, monsieur, you can,” promptly replied Mr. “Malloch” (whose real name happened to be MacGregor of Balhaldie). “His Royal Highness desires particularly to see the Comte de Saxe without delay. You can doubtless inform me how he may best be come at—to whom application should be made?”

      But at that the young officer looked embarrassed. “You must be aware, monsieur,” he replied, returning to his native tongue, while one hand fidgeted with his sword-knot, “that M. de Saxe, solely for reasons of State, has never permitted himself the honour of an interview with His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and that His Royal Highness, for the same sufficient cause, has perfectly concurred in this arrangement.”

      “But he concurs no more!” said a voice from behind, a young, strained, impatient voice with the faintest trace of some other accent in its French. “My God, it can be borne no longer! I am but flesh and blood, and reasons of State must go! I must know—I must know to-night what M. de Saxe intends! I must see him in person!”

      Balhaldie sprang round, Ranald Maclean recoiled, and Cyprien de Lancize, astounded beyond words, did the same, as into the middle of the shabby little room there strode, uncloaking himself as he came, a good-looking, fair-complexioned young man, beautifully proportioned, with an oval face, bright brown eyes, a rather small but imperious mouth, and an air charged with the will to command.

      “Your Royal Highness,” remonstrated his companion, “I thought you had not intended——”

      “To reveal myself until you had prepared Mr. Maclean for my arrival? But there is surely no need of that! The roof which shelters one Highland heart can surely shelter me! Is that not so, Mr. Maclean?”

      His eyes flashed; he held out his hand, and Ranald, thus beholding for the first time his lawful prince, dropped on one knee and reverently pressed the hand to his lips.

      “And this gentleman,” went on Charles Edward, “who wears, I see, the uniform of my royal cousin——”