"And you will keep the gold?"
Strange winked at that.
"We two, Rob," said he with a smile.
Then Rob, knowing all and realizing that Muckle John must have the dispatch, rose to his feet.
"Whether I have been a scapegoat or not," he said, "I have only myself to blame; and let me tell you at once, Captain Strange or Macaulay, or whatever your dirty name may be, that nothing can save me from the hangman's noose; neither you with all your promises nor anything else, for I have not the paper you want," and he waited for the storm to burst.
But the smile never died from the other's lips.
"Weel I know that, Rob," said he, "for I have it safe here," and he drew the package, still sealed, from his coat pocket.
With a cry of rage Rob rushed at him, but the chains about his legs tripped him up, and Strange, stepping aside with a snarl, took him by the shoulder and flung him violently to the other end of the room.
"Down!" he cried, "or I will pistol you." In a grim silence he thrust the package back into his pocket.
"Ye see, I hold the cards," he said in a malignant voice. "And now is it to be a dislocated neck and your dead body the prey of corbies—or the salvation of your Prince, a share in the gold, and the taking of Lovat, which is inevitable in any case, and that of Cameron, which is only a question of time? Neither will suffer the extreme penalty, for Lovat is an old man who has sat at home, and Cameron is a doctor and was no at Culloden at all. As for Muckle John, I will tell ye why he made such a lot o' ye."