But to his surprise the staff officer was gripping him hard by the arm. “Tell me, in God’s name, what means you used? Ardroy would never——” He seemed unable to finish.
“Means? I really don’t know,” replied the lieutenant, still more surprised. “I should be obliged if you would let go my arm, sir! I have nothing to do with the prisoners. Perhaps this Cameron was promised his liberty or something of the sort—but on my soul I don’t know . . . or care,” he muttered under his breath, rubbing his arm as Keith released it.
“Promised!” cried Keith in a tempest of fury and horror. “No, he has been tortured into it!—that is the only possible explanation of his giving that information—if it be true that he has done so. My God, what has this campaign reduced men to! Take me to Lord Loudoun at once!”
“I cannot, sir,” protested the lieutenant. “He has given the strictest orders——”
“Take me to him at once,” repeated Keith in a dangerous voice; and the young officer, probably thinking that the safest way to deal with a superior who seemed off his balance was to humour him, shrugged his shoulders, and began to lead him in the rain between the tents.
Last night! That meant, then, that for nearly a week they had been trying . . . and had succeeded at last in wresting the secret from a man badly wounded, ill from starvation, and now, perhaps, dying—dying as much of a broken heart as from their usage of him. It was with that unbearable picture of Ewen Cameron in his mind that, after parleys with sentries of which he heard nothing, Keith stepped into the Earl of Loudoun’s presence without any clear idea of what he was going to do there.
He found himself in a large, well-furnished tent, with a brazier burning in one corner, and, round a table, several officers of various ranks (most of them, like the Earl himself, wearing tartan), was announced as an officer of the staff from Inverness, and, duly saluting, gave his name and regiment.
The Earl of Loudoun—more Lowland Scot than Highlander in his appearance—looked less annoyed at the interruption than might have been expected; indeed his air showed that he supposed the intruder to be the bearer of some tidings of importance from head-quarters.
“You are on His Royal Highness’s staff, Major Windham?” he asked.
“On General Hawley’s, my Lord,” replied Keith. “I am on my way back to Inverness from Perth, and I have ventured to ask for this interview because——”