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

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 of independent companies who were strolling ahead of him deep in talk. It was impossible, however, not to overtake them in the end; and, as he and his escort drew nearer, scraps of their conversation 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