The early morning bugle, close at hand, woke Keith Windham with a
start. He had had little sleep during the night, and was all the
deeper buried now. Where was he? He stared round the tent—an
unfamiliar one. Then he remembered.
And all that endless day he sat in his canvas prison and did little
else save remember. For the first time in his life he was in the midst
of camp routine without a share in it—with no right to a share in it.
No sword hung upon the tent-pole, and a sentry paced outside whose
business was not to keep intruders out, but him in.
Had he not 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 in 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 of 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 _explain_!” repeated Ewen with an indescribable intonation. “To
explain why you told your confederate Major Guthrie everything you
knew about me, to explain why you came back that night and fooled me,
why you urged him to tear from me what I knew, having first made sure
that I knew it—it needs no explanation! You wanted to pay off old
scores—Edinburgh, Loch Oich side. Be content, you have done it—you
have more than done it!”
“Ardroy, no, no, as God’s my witness,” struck in Keith desperately,
“I had no such thought!” But he was not heeded, for Ewen tore on
hoarsely:
“Since you desired so greatly to be even with me for a moment of
triumph, could you not have let me be shot, and watched it? Or was
that not sufficient for you because I did not know that you were
there? . . . Oh, if God would but give me back that moment against
the shieling wall, and allow it to finish as it was meant to! Then I
should not be to-day what you have made me—a worse traitor than you
are yourself!”
After that there was silence. What use in talking of his good faith
and his charitable intentions when they had resulted in this! For it
was true then—Ardroy _had_ given the information. Indeed the fact was
written on his haunted face.
But at last Keith said, in a scarcely audible voice and with his eyes
on the floor, “What did they . . . do to you?”
There was no answer, and, looking up, he saw that the wounded man’s
outburst had exhausted him; breathing fast, he had put his head back
against the edge of the seat behind him, and his eyes were half shut.
His appearance was so ghastly that Keith went forward and seized a
bowl of water from the floor beside him.
But a shaking hand came up to keep him off, and he hesitated. “What,
are you trying to act _that night_ over again?” asked Ewen bitterly.
And Keith stood there helpless, his fingers tightening on the bowl.
Was this anguished hostility utterly to defeat him?
The Highlander looked as if he had not slept for nights and nights;
his eyes, naturally rather deepset, were fearfully sunk, and glittered
with a feverish brilliance. All his courtesy, all his self-command,
his usual rather gentle address, every quality which Keith had
observed and carelessly admired in him, seemed obliterated by the
event which had brought him almost to breaking-point. “Will you not
go?” he gasped out, clenching his hands; “will you not go now that you
are satisfied?”
Keith put down the bowl; the action seemed symbolic. “Ardroy, if you
would only listen for a moment!” he pleaded. “Indeed it is not as you
think! I never betrayed you—I would as soon betray my own brother!
There has been a horrible——”
“Why must I endure this, too, after all the rest?” broke out Ewen
violently. “You cannot make a fool of me again, Major Windham! Have a
little pity at the last, and leave me!”
“No, for your own sake you _must_ hear me!” urged Keith. “It is Major
Guthrie who is respon——”
But Ewen Cameron, with a face like stone (save that no stone image
ever had eyes like that), had put his hands over his ears.
It was hopeless then! Baffled, Keith slowly turned and went to the
door. He had wrecked his own career to no purpose. . . . But it was
not of that catastrophe which he thought as, having rapped to be let
out, he stood there with bent head. He was not even conscious of
resentment at the more than taunts which had been flung at him, for it
was he who had brought the man who uttered them to this pass.
He knocked again, louder; but the sergeant must have gone away,
possibly to keep watch below. It came to Keith dimly, like a shape
seen through fog, that Ardroy and he had once before been locked in
together. . . . Then he was aware that the half-prostrate man on the
floor had moved a little, that he was leaning on his left hand, and
that those glittering blue eyes were on him again.
“Cannot you get out?” There was impatience in the icy voice.
“No, for I also am locked in,” answered Keith very low.
“_You_—the informer!”
Keith swallowed hard. “I am a prisoner . . . like you.” But the words
would hardly come.
“Why?”
“For neglect of duty,” replied Keith wearily. “For turning back while
carrying a despatch.”
“So you cannot even serve your own side faithfully!” observed Ewen
with contempt.
Keith turned a little whiter and gripped the handle of the locked
door. For an instant the flame of his hot temper flickered, only to
subside among the ashes. “No,” he answered after a moment; “no, so it
seems. I have disgraced myself, as well as ruining you. . . . The
gaoler must have gone away, I am afraid, and I cannot relieve you of
my presence until he returns.”
“It is of no moment,” replied Ewen coldly, and he shifted himself a
trifle so as to look at his visitor no longer, and propped his head on
his clenched fist. The plaid in which he was partly wrapped had
slipped from his shoulders when he put his hands up to his ears, and
there was now nothing to hide his torn and dirty shirt—which, after
all, was only of a piece with the general neglect of his person. The
only evidence of care or cleanliness was the fresh bandage round his
sword-arm. . . . ‘So that has been recently dressed,’ thought Keith,
‘and he can use it. . . . That must be the plaid which I spread over
him in the shieling. He was a very different man then. . . .’
He was surprised, after another appreciable silence, to find himself
being addressed again, though not looked at.
“Why did you turn back?”
“What is the use of telling you—you will not believe me! Indeed I
wonder whether you believe me when I say that I am under arrest; that
might be a lie also.”
He had at least succeeded in gaining Ardroy’s attention, for the
latter dropped his arm and once again looked across the room at him.
“I should like to know why you turned back?” he repeated, without
comment on the reply which he had drawn forth.
Yes, that at all events he should hear! Keith left the door, where
there was no sound of Sergeant Mullins’ approach.
“Cannot you guess? I came because of you—because, a dozen miles beyond
here, on my way back to Inverness, I learnt both of the abominable way
in which you had been treated in Guthrie’s camp, and of the manner in
which that scoundrel had twisted my words and my actions in order to
misrepresent me to you. It was the night before last; it was late, but
I resaddled and came back at once—neglecting my duty, Lord Loudoun
said. I rode back in the greatest haste to see you, I was in such
apprehension about you. When I got here I heard that you——” Ewen drew
his breath sharply, and the sentence was not finished. “I insisted on
seeing Lord Loudoun at once, and when I was told that you had . . .
had made disclosures of your own free will, I demanded to see you. I
said that I would never believe that unless you told me so yourself.
Then there was a scene of some violence, and I had to give up my sword
and my despatch—and I suppose that in a few days my commission will
go the same road. Should I have acted so—so madly against my own
interests if I had been what you think me? . . . But I am forgetting;
you will say that this is false also, though every officer in Fort
Augustus should tell you that it is true!”
Ewen had put his head down on his updrawn right knee. A shaft of
sunlight, striking through one of the narrow windows, fell across its
auburn disorder. And, looking with something more painful than pity at
the utter desolation of his aspect, Keith thought that life could
scarcely hold anything more terrible for a gallant man than to feel
himself at once a traitor and betrayed. But betrayed he had not been!
If only he could be brought to see that!
And perhaps Ewen was being brought to it, for from his huddled figure
there came a long sigh, and, after another silence, words which
sounded as though they were wrung from his very heart:
“I wish to God that I could trust you again!”