it a purely private matter, my Lord,” retorted Keith hotly, “that a badly wounded Highland gentleman should be tortured into giving information against his own Chief? It seems to me a matter affecting the good name of the whole army. I only hope that I have been misinformed, and that no such disclosures have been dragged from him.”
“Have you come here, sir,” asked Lord Loudoun with increasing displeasure, “and on no one’s authority but your own, to dictate to me on the treatment of prisoners?”
“No, indeed, my Lord,” replied Keith, making an effort to be properly deferential. “I have come, on the contrary, because I feel sure that your Lordship——”
“If you want news of any prisoner,” interrupted his Lordship with a wave of the hand, “you must wait until Captain Greening here is at liberty. Meanwhile you will perhaps have the goodness to remember that I only marched in to Fort Augustus this morning, and am still so pressed with business that I see small chance of sleep to-night if I am to be interrupted in this manner.”
It was a dismissal: less harsh than at one moment seemed likely, but proving to Keith that he had gained nothing. He tried another tack.
“My Lord, give me permission then, I implore you, to visit the prisoner in question, Mr. Ewen Cameron of Ardroy.”
Loudoun’s eyebrows went up. “Is there anyone of that name confined here, Captain Greening?” he asked in an annoyed voice, turning to a fair, rather womanish looking young man on his left.
Captain Greening smiled a peculiar little smile. “Oh, yes, my Lord; he has been here nearly a week. Major Windham has already made enquiries for him once to-day, so I hear—when he passed on his way to Inverness this afternoon. I was out of camp at the time.”
“What!” exclaimed the Earl, looking from the officer to Keith in astonishment. “Major Windham has been through Fort Augustus once already to-day? This is very singular! Instead of your questioning me, Major Windham, I will ask you to explain your own conduct. Kindly tell me on what errand you originally left head-quarters?”
Keith saw a possible gulf opening for himself now. But he was too passionately indignant to care much. “I have been to Perth, my Lord, with a despatch from His Royal Highness to Lord Albemarle. I was on my way back to Inverness to-day when I heard that Cameron of Ardroy——”
“Leave Cameron of Ardroy out of it, if you please!” said Lord Loudoun in growing anger. “What I want, Major Windham, is some explanation of your own extraordinary behaviour. I gather that you are now on your way back from Perth. Are you carrying despatches from Lord Albemarle to His Royal Highness, or are you empty-handed?”
“I have a letter, of no particular moment, from Lord Albemarle to the Duke,” replied Keith more warily.
“You have, at any rate, a despatch, sir. You have passed this place already on your way to Inverness, carrying it. Some hours later you are back again, making fresh enquiries about a rebel. Had you confided your despatch to another hand in the interval?”
“No, my Lord,” confessed Keith. “Knowing that the matter was not urgent, and that it was impossible for me to reach Inverness to-night, I resolved to lie at the General’s Hut. There I heard something which determined me to have more reliable news of Mr. Cameron of Ardroy, to whom I owe it that I am alive at all to-day. Instead of going to bed at the General’s Hut I rode back here, and whether I start from Boleskine at six or from Fort Augustus at half-past four, Lord Albemarle’s letter will reach His Royal Highness’s hands at exactly the same hour.”
“You seem to have a strangely easy idea of your military duties, Major Windham,” commented Lord Loudoun, drumming on the table. “May I ask how long you have borne His Majesty’s commission?”
“Twelve years,” answered Keith curtly.
“And in all those years you have not learnt the sacredness of a despatch! You are entrusted with one to the Commander-in-Chief, and you take upon yourself to turn back in order to assure yourself of the welfare of a rebel prisoner!—Is it true that this man has made a disclosure?” he asked suddenly of Captain Greening.
“Quite true, my Lord,” responded the fair young officer. “I have notes of it here; it was one of the matters which I desired to bring to your Lordship’s notice. It relates to Lochiel’s hiding-place near Loch Arkaig, and will prove of the greatest service in your Lordship’s future operations.”
At that reply all thoughts of his own situation abandoned Keith; he was caught up again in a wave of fury and shame. “My God!” he cried, striding forward, his eyes fixed on Captain Greening, “are there devils here too? You have tortured him into it . . . never deny it, I’ll not believe you! As well be in a camp of Red Indians or African savages! Inverness was bad enough, with its prisons stuffed with purposely neglected wounded; then that man Guthrie, and now——”
Lord Loudoun sprang up, very threatening of aspect. “Major Windham, may I ask you to remember where you are! I’ll not be spoken to in such a manner!”
“I was not addressing you, my Lord,” said Keith fiercely. “I know that you only reached Fort Augustus this morning. You are not responsible for what has been going on—God knows what it was—before you came. But this officer here——”
“Be silent, sir!” shouted the Earl of Loudoun. “Neither will I have aspersions cast on officers now under my command . . . and by a member of General Hawley’s staff, too! Are your own hands so clean, pray? You do not deserve that I should reply to your insinuations, but—Captain Greening, was this information got from the Cameron prisoner by unlawful means?”
“No, my Lord, I assure you that it was not. He gave it . . . voluntarily.” But again there was that little smile.
“There, you hear, sir!” said the Earl. “Your charges——”
“I don’t believe it,” said Keith in the same moment. “I will not believe it until I hear it from Ardroy himself.”
And at that Lord Loudoun completely lost his temper. “God’s name, am I to suffer you to browbeat me in my own tent?—you, who have just behaved in a manner unpardonable in a soldier! Major Windham, I place you under arrest for insubordination. You will kindly give up your sword!”
It was as if a douche of cold water had descended on Keith’s head. His left hand went to his sword-hilt. “Insubordination, my Lord? No, I protest!”
“Very well, it shall be for neglect of duty, then,” said the Earl, still very angry. “Lord Albemarle’s despatch is in truth not safe with a man who can go twenty miles out of his way while carrying it. I shall send it on by one of my own aides-de-camp to-night. Give it up at once, if you do not wish to be searched. Captain Munro, call a guard!”
Like rain upon a bonfire, the cold douche had, after a temporary extinction, only inflamed Keith Windham’s rage. He unhooked his sword, scabbard and all, and flung it at Loudoun’s feet, saying that he was glad to be rid of it. By this time—seeing too that the falling weapon had nearly caught his Lordship on the toes—every officer in the tent was rushing towards him. “Reassure yourselves, gentlemen,” said Keith, laughing angrily, and, opening his uniform, took out Lord Albemarle’s despatch and tendered it to the nearest. Then, without more ado, he followed the guard out into the rain, his last memory, as he left the lighted tent, not of Lord Loudoun’s affronted, angry face, but of Captain Greening’s, with that sly, secretly amused smile round his girlish mouth.
