The Jacobite Trilogy: The Flight of the Heron, The Gleam in the North & The Dark Mile. D. K. Broster

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СКАЧАТЬ his hands, said nothing; he was beyond it. This was what came of doing evil in order to accomplish good!

      “Still Mr. Cameron took no notice,” pursued Paton, “even when the Major went on to say in so many words that you had betrayed him—Mr. Cameron—and had then ridden off, leaving him the dirty work to do. Then he changed his tone, and said, ‘But I shall not flinch from it; ’tis my duty. Do you know, Mr. Cameron of Ardroy, how we deal with folk that have valuable information and will not part with it?’ At that the prisoner did open his eyes, and said with a good deal of contempt that, from what he had seen of the Major, he could very well guess.

      “The Major at that bent over him and gripped him by the nearer arm. He may not have observed that it was bandaged—I cannot say—and repeated, ‘Ah, you can quite imagine, can you? D’you think you’ll like it?’ Mr. Cameron did not answer; perhaps he could not, for he was biting his lip, and I saw the sweat come out on his brow. Major Guthrie let go and stood up again, and said that a flogging with belts would soon loosen his tongue; and that did rouse Mr. Cameron, for he coloured hotly and said he thought the Major forgot that he was a gentleman. But the Major replied with a chuckle that he looked so little like one at present that it was easy to assume that he was not. Then he asked him whether he intended to save himself from this unpleasant experience, as he easily could do; Mr. Cameron’s look was sufficient answer to that. So, to my horror, the Major sent for the drummers and ordered a tent to be struck, in order to have the pole available to tie him up to.”

      “This is intolerable!” exclaimed Keith, starting up. “Stop! I had rather not——” He pulled himself together. “No, I have got to hear it. Go on!”

      “I assure you that I did not enjoy it,” said the young officer, “for I thought that the matter was going through. They lifted Mr. Cameron off the litter; he could not stand, it appeared, owing to the wound in his thigh, and the men were obliged to support him. But the Major said to him that he would not be able to fall this time, as he had done yesterday, because we had ropes here. . . . I myself, who would willingly have interfered before, sir, had there been any chance of being listened to, now took the Major by the arm and told him plainly that he would kill the prisoner if he was so barbarous as to have him flogged in his present condition. But he shook me off, and said, when everything was ready (except Mr. Cameron himself, who was still held up there, facing him, as white as you please, but perfectly unyielding and defiant): ‘Now, before you make acquaintance with His Majesty’s leather, will you tell me what you know about Lochiel?’ And the rebel, with his eyes blazing, said, in a sudden access of fury, ‘Not if you cut me to pieces!’

      “Well, sir, though I am convinced that the Major was not acting a part and merely threatening, but that he really meant to go through with the horrid business, I think it must have come to him then that, if he did, he would have Mr. Cameron dead on his hands, as I had warned him, and there would be an end to that source of information. (It is possible, too, that he thought he might be called to account for it afterwards.) And even the men were looking uneasy and murmuring a little. So he said that he would postpone the flogging until the afternoon. He had the prisoner carried into his own tent, not much, I fear, the better for this scene; and in his tent Mr. Cameron was all the rest of the day and the night. I do not know what passed in there, for whenever I made an effort to go in, I was stopped; but I am sure the Major questioned him pretty continuously. He still spoke of the flogging taking place, but it never did. Next morning I was not surprised to hear that the prisoner seemed worse, and in a fever, so that the Major resolved to be rid of him, and sent him to Fort Augustus. I was heartily glad, for his own sake, to see Mr. Cameron taken away. And at Fort Augustus he must have had care, or he would not be alive now, which he is, for I asked news of him yesterday, as we came by. But that I should be ashamed to meet him, I would fain have seen him to ask his pardon.”

      Paton’s voice ceased; in the silence one of the horses near them stamped and blew out its nostrils. Keith, standing there very still, released his own tightly gripped elbows.

      “Mr. Paton, I thank you most heartily for your frankness. I, too, am ashamed—with much more cause than you, I think—yet I am going back to Fort Augustus to see Mr. Cameron.”

      “Back to Fort Augustus—to-night!” said Paton, rather startled.

      “Yes, to-night. My horse,” he glanced at that animal, “can still carry me so far—a matter of ten or twelve miles, is it not? I intended to lie here the night, and to start about six o’clock to-morrow morning for Inverness. I shall lie at Fort Augustus instead, and start proportionately earlier, that is all. I must find my orderly at once, but I shall not take him back with me.”

      Paton said no more, and they went out of the barn together, by which evacuation the waiting soldiers outside, huddled against its wall for shelter, were enabled to enter their sleeping-place. While the surprised Mackay resaddled his officer’s horse, Keith strode back to the inn parlour. But just outside, where he could hear Guthrie’s voice in conversation, he paused. If he meant to get back to Fort Augustus he must not enter Guthrie’s presence first; the fury and resentment which possessed him could have but one result—a quarrel with the Lowlander. Moreover, Lieutenant Paton might suffer for his communicativeness. Clenching his hands, Keith turned away from temptation.

      But there was one last question to ask.

      “Mr. Paton,” he said in a low voice as his horse was brought towards him, “have you any notion why Major Guthrie hates me so, for it is plain that he does!”

      And to his surprise the young man answered, in a voice equally low:

      “I have a very good notion why, sir. He had had great hopes of securing that post on General Hawley’s staff which was eventually given to you. Your obtaining it was a very sore point with him, because he thought his claims superior to those of an officer who—who . . .” Paton hesitated.

      “Yes, I understand,” said Keith, his mouth tightening. “Who had lost one of the companies at High Bridge.” Guthrie’s sneers on that fatal ride were explained now. “So that was my offence!” he said under his breath, as he swung into the saddle. “And this is how he has avenged himself!”

      * * * * *

      The wind had risen greatly in the last hour, and the rain was no longer a fine, almost caressing, drizzle; it beat upon the rider as he urged his horse back along the lower levels with a vehemence which predicted real difficulty in proceeding when he should reach the higher. But he did not notice it.

      There could not be the slightest doubt that Ewen Cameron must believe him to have acted in a manner unspeakably treacherous and vile. From the deadly success of Guthrie’s ‘arrow at a venture’, as Paton had rightly called it, he must even think that his visitor had gone straight back from tending him in the shieling to Guthrie’s camp with the news that he had succeeded in gaining the fugitive’s confidence, and had ascertained that he did know of Lochiel’s hiding-place. It was an absolutely intolerable thought, and nothing, nothing should stop him until he had seen Ardroy and assured him of his innocence—neither the rising storm nor fatigue, nor the possible danger in riding thus alone at night (though to that, despite the afternoon’s attempt on his life, he gave scarcely a thought), nor Lord Albemarle’s despatch. It was a mercy that this contained, as he knew, nothing of urgency, nothing but a mere expression of compliments, and that he could therefore retrace his steps consistently with his military obligations. In any case, the letter would reach Inverness no later than if he had spent the night at the General’s Hut, so on that score at least his mind was at rest.

      It was certainly the only score on which it was. The more Keith thought of the situation, the more it horrified him. Why, good God, Ardroy might even imagine that the infamous proposal of flogging, which turned him hot to think of, came from him! Guthrie was evidently quite capable of stating that it СКАЧАТЬ