He was confronting an argument that had a great
deal of weight with him, and out of the lining of his bonnet he ripped a
letter.

"Thanks, but I'll take the one in your breast pocket," I told him dryly.

Out it came with a deal of pother. The letter was addressed to the Duke of
Cumberland, Portree, Skye. My lips framed themselves to a long whistle.
Here was the devil to pay. If the butcher was on the island I knew he had
come after bigger game than muircocks. No less a quarry than the Prince
himself would tempt him to this remote region. I marched my prisoner back
to Captain Roy and Murdoch. To Donald I handed the letter, and he ripped
it open without ceremony. 'Twas merely a note from the Campbell Lieutenant
of militia, to say that the orders of his Highness regarding the watching
of the coast would be fulfilled to the least detail.

"Well, and here's a pirn to unravel. What's to be done now?" asked the
Macdonald.

"By Heaven, I have it," cried I. "Let Murdoch carry the news to Raasay
that the Prince may get away at once. Do you guard our prisoner here,
while I, dressed in his trews and bonnet, carry the letter to the Duke.
His answer may throw more light on the matter."

Not to make long, so it was decided. We made fashion to plaster up the
envelope so as not to show a casual looker that it had been tampered with,
and I footed it to Portree in the patched trews of the messenger, not with
the lightest heart in the world. The first redcoat I met directed me to
the inn where the Duke had his headquarters, and I was presently admitted
to a hearing.

The Duke was a ton of a little man with the phlegmatic Dutch face. He read
the letter stolidly and began to ask questions as to the disposition of
our squad. I lied generously, magnificently, my face every whit as wooden
as his; and while I was still at it the door behind me opened and a man
came in leisurely. He waited for the Duke to have done with me, softly
humming a tune the while, his shadow flung in front across my track; and
while he lilted there came to me a dreadful certainty that on occasion I
had heard the singer and his song before.

"'Then come kiss me sweet and twenty.
Youth's a stuff will not endure,'"

carolled the melodious voice lazily. Need I say that it belonged to my
umquhile friend Sir Robert Volney.

Cumberland brushed me aside with a wave of his hand.

"Donner! If the Pretender is on Skye--and he must be--