Ardroy, reddening slightly, made no reply beyond returning the ‘Good evening’, but hung up his bonnet on a nail and began to unfasten the shoulder-brooch of his plaid. There was not a very great deal of satisfaction for Captain Windham to be got out of baiting this ‘young Achilles’ of his, because Achilles kept so tight a hold upon his temper and his tongue. Or was it that he was naturally impassive? Hardly, for Keith was sure that he felt the points of the darts which he contrived from time to time to plant in him. Perhaps Ardroy thought that the best way to meet his captive’s malice was to appear unaware of it; and indeed the archer himself had to confess that this course rather baffled him. He followed up his first shaft by another.
“You must admit that you should not have brought me here if you did not wish me to learn your military dispositions—if such I am to call that measure!”
And if the Highlander went on pretending that the unpinning of his plaid was engaging his whole attention Keith would feel that he had drawn blood. He knew that his own conduct verged on the puerile, but the pleasure of pursuing it was too strong.
The big brooch, however, was undone at last, and Ewen said rather dryly: “I am glad that your spirits are not suffering from the weather, Captain Windham.”
“On the contrary,” said his prisoner cheerfully, leaning back against the wall of the hut, his hands behind his head, “I am entertaining myself by trying to recall any other great commander who began his campaign by burying most of his artillery in a swamp; but I have failed. Yet, by Gad, the plan might work a revolution in warfare—in fact ’twould end it altogether if it were carried out to its logical conclusion. Armies would take the field only to bury their muskets—and perhaps,” he added maliciously, “that will be your next step. I protest that some of them would not take much harm by the interment!”
Ewen swung off his plaid. “Your mirth at our lack of equipment is very natural,” he replied with complete equanimity. “But perhaps our ill provision may not be widely known to our enemies. And is it not a fact within your own military experience, Captain Windham,” he went on, looking him in the face, “that it is what one supposes an enemy’s forces to be rather than what they actually are which sometimes turns the scale?”
It was the Englishman who coloured this time. In its absence of specific reference to the mishap at High Bridge the retort was just sufficiently veiled to enable him, had he chosen, to affect unconsciousness of its sting. But he was too proud to do this.
“I deserved that,” he admitted, scrambling to his feet with the words. “I am not such a dolt as to be unaware to what you allude. That you feel obliged to remind me of last Friday’s disgrace proves that my own remarks were not in the best of taste—and I apologise for them.”
But his tormentor’s apology appeared to embarrass Ewen Cameron much more than his thrusts. “I am sorry I said that, Captain Windham!” he exclaimed, with a vivacity which rather astonished the other. “I ought not to have taunted you with a calamity for which you were not to blame. That was in worse taste still.”
“Egad, Mr. Cameron, you are too punctilious,” said Keith carelessly. “But if you are of that mind—I don’t say that I am—we may fairly cry quits.”