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

that we should leave this unfortunate man here to die!”

      Ewen looked down at him, breathing hard. “I will finish him off if you prefer it. ’Tis the best thing that can happen to him and to all the inhabitants of Ardnamurchan. You have heard what his reputation is.” And turning away he began blindly to break a twig off the nearest birch-tree.

      Mr. Oliphant still knelt there for another second or two, silent, perhaps from shock. Then he gently laid down the head which he was supporting, came round the prostrate scarlet figure and over to his metamorphosed companion.

      “Mr. Cameron, it is not the welfare of Ardnamurchan which you have in your mind. This man has done you some injury in the past—is it not so?”

      Ewen was twisting and breaking the birch twig as though it were some sentient thing which he hated.

      “But for God’s mercy he had made a traitor of me,” he said in a suffocated voice. “Yet that I could forgive . . . since he failed. But he has my friend’s blood on his hands.”

      There was a silence, save for the faint moaning behind them.

      “And for that,” said Mr. Oliphant sternly, “you will take his blood on yours?”

      “I have always meant to, if I got the chance,” answered Ewen, with dreadful implacability. “I would it had been in fair fight—this is not what I had desired. But I am certainly not going to save his worse than worthless life at the expense, perhaps, of your liberty and mine . . . I am not going to save it in any case. He slew my best friend.”

      “You made mention just now, Mr. Cameron, of God’s mercy.”

      “Ay, so I did,” said Ewen defiantly. “But God has other attributes too. This,” he looked for a moment over his shoulder, “this, I think, is His justice.”

      “That is possible; but you are not God. You are a man who only yesterday received the greatest of His earthly gifts with, as I believed, a humble and a thankful heart. To-day you, who so lately drank of the cup of salvation, refuse a cup of cold water to a dying enemy.”

      Ewen said nothing; what was there to say? He stood looking down through the trees on to the loch, his mouth set like a vice.

      “Are you going to Mingary, my son?” asked Mr. Oliphant after another brief and pregnant silence.

      “No, I am not.”

      “Very well then, I must go.” But his voice was not as steady as heretofore when he added, “I would to God that it were you!”

      In the grim white face before him the blue eyes darkened and blazed. Ardroy caught hold of the old man’s arm. “There’s one thing that’s certain, Mr. Oliphant, and that is, that you are not going to enter the lion’s den for the sake of that scoundrel!”

      “The lion’s den? Is that what is keeping you back—a natural distaste for endangering yourself? I thought it had been something less of man’s weakness . . . and more of the devil!”

      “So it is,” retorted Ewen stormily. “You know quite well that I am not afraid to go to Mingary Castle!”

      “Then why will you not let me go? I am only an old, unprofitable man whose words are not heeded. If I do not come out again what matter? It is true, I shall not get there near as quick as you, and every minute”—he glanced back—“the faint chance of life is slipping further away. But one of us has to go, Mr. Cameron. Will you loose my arm?” His worn face was infinitely sad.

      Ewen did not comply with his request. He had his left hand pressed to his mouth, in truth, his teeth were fixed in the back of it—some help, if a strange one, to mastery of the wild passions which were rending him, and to keeping back, also, the hot tears which stung behind his eyes.

      He heard Mr. Oliphant say under his breath, in accents of the most poignant sorrow, “Then appeared the tares also. Such tall, such noble wheat! Truly the Enemy hath done this!” He understood, but he did not waver. He would not go for help.

      “Mr. Cameron, time is very short. Let me go! Do not lay this death on my conscience too. Loose me, in the name of Him Whom you are defying!”

      Ewen dropped the speaker’s arm, dropped his own hand. It was bleeding. He turned a tempest-ridden face on Mr. Oliphant.

      “It shall not be the better man of us two who goes to Mingary,” he said violently. “I will go—you force me to it! And even though he be carrion by the time help comes, will you be satisfied?”

      Mr. Oliphant’s look seemed to pierce him. “By the time you get to Mingary, Highlander though you are, your vengeance will be satisfied.”

      “As to that——” Ewen shrugged his shoulders. “But you, how will you ever reach Salen alone?”

      “Salen? I shall not start for Salen until help has come; I shall stay here.” And as Ewen began a fierce exclamation he added, “How can I, a priest, leave him lying at the gate and go away?”

      “And then they will take you?—No, I will not go to Mingary . . . I will not go unless you give me your word to withdraw yourself as soon as you hear the soldiers coming. That might serve, since I shall not say that any is with him, and they will not think of searching.”

      Mr. Oliphant considered a moment. “Yes, I will promise that if it will ease your mind. And later, if God will, we may meet again on the Salen road, you overtaking me. Now go, and the Lord Christ go with you . . . angelos!”

      For an instant his hand rested, as if in blessing, on Ewen’s breast. The young man snatched it up, put it to his lips, and without a word plunged down the slope to the track below, so torn with rage and shame and wild resentment that he could hardly see what he was doing.

      But once on the level he clenched his hands and broke into the long, loping Highland trot which he could keep up, if need were, for miles. He might, in Mr. Oliphant’s eyes, be no better than a murderer and a savage, he might in his own be so weak of will that a few words from an old man whom he scarcely knew could turn him from his long-cherished purpose, he might be so cursed by fate as to have met his enemy in circumstances which had snatched from him his rightful revenge—but at least, if he were forced to play the rescuer, he would keep his word about it. Out of this brief but devastating hurricane of passion that intention seemed to be the only thing left to him—that and the physical capacity to run and run towards the black keep of Mingary Castle which he so little desired to enter.

      CHAPTER XI

       THE CASTLE ON THE SHORE

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      The ancient stronghold of the Maclans of Ardnamurchan, where James IV. had held his court, which had repulsed Lachlan Maclean with his Spanish auxiliaries from the wrecked Armada galleon, and had surrendered to Colkitto’s threat of burning in Montrose’s wars; which had known Argyll’s seven weeks’ siege and Clanranald’s relief, stood on the very verge of the shore gazing over at Mull. At high tide the sea lapped its walls—or at least the rocks on which those walls were built—save on the side where a portion of the fortress had its footing on the mainland. It looked very grim and grey this winter morning, and the runner, drawing breath at last, felt exceedingly little inclination to approach it.

      And yet air, flag, garrison, were all unstirring; Mingary seemed a fortress of the dead, staring across dull water at a misty shore. No one was visible save the sentry on the bridge crossing the fosse which guarded the keep on the landward, its most vulnerable side. As Ewen approached, the man brought his musket to the ready and challenged him in the accents of the Lowlands.

      Ardroy made his announcement from a distance of some yards. “I am come to tell you that your missing colonel is found. He is lying in sore straits on the slopes of Loch Mudle, and if you want him alive you must send without a moment’s delay to fetch