“Or turn it this way,” continued Volney, “that the man is not a friend. Suppose him a rival claimant to an estate I mean to possess. Can I in honour give him up? What would you think, Mont—er—Campbell?”
“Not Mont-Campbell, but Campbell,” I corrected. “I will be thinking, sir, that it would be a matter for your conscience, and at all events it iss fery lucky that you do not hafe to decide it.”
“Still the case might arise. It’s always well to be prepared,” he answered, laughing.
“Nonsense, Robert! What the deuce do you mean by discussing such a matter with a Highland kerne? I never saw your match for oddity,” said the Duke.
While he was still speaking there was a commotion in the outer room of the inn. There sounded a rap at the door, and on the echo of the knock an officer came into the room to announce the capture of a suspect. He was followed by the last man in the world I wanted to see at that moment, no other than the Campbell soldier whose place I was usurping. The fat was in the fire with a vengeance now, and though I fell back to the rear I knew it was but a question of time till his eye lit on me.
The fellow began to tell his story, got nearly through before his ferret eyes circled round to me, then broke off to burst into a screed of the Gaelic as he pointed a long finger at me.
The Duke flung round on me in a cold fury. “Is this true, fellow?”
I came forward shrugging.
“To deny were folly when the evidence is writ so plain,” I said.
“And who the devil are you?”