remove near to the place whence they
were to embark, for her fears had been excited by a message which
arrived from Ormaclade, acquainting Lady Clanranald that a party of
soldiers, under the infamous Captain Fergusson, had arrived at her
house, and had taken up their quarters there. Lady Clanranald hastened
home, where she managed to deceive and perplex both General Campbell,
who had lately arrived in Benbecula, and Captain Fergusson.

And now another trial was at hand:--it was necessary for Captain O'Neil
and the Prince to separate. The Irishman would fain have remained with
Charles, but Flora was firm, as well as kind; her opinion on this point
was decided; and O'Neil was obliged to yield. This point was not gained
without much difficulty, for Charles even remonstrated. O'Neil took his
leave, and made his way, through a country traversed by troops, to South
Uist, where O'Sullivan had been left. "I could now," writes Captain
O'Neil in his journal, when he relates his departure from the Prince,
"only recommend him to God and his good fortune." This kind-hearted man
was afterwards taken prisoner by Captain Fergusson, who had him stripped
and threatened not only with the rack, but also with being whipped by
his hangman, because he would not disclose where the Prince was. These
cruelties were opposed, however, by a junior officer, who, coming out
with a drawn sword, threatened Fergusson with a beating, and saved
O'Neil from the punishment which was to have been the requital of his
fidelity.

When all were gone, except Flora, the Prince, and Mac Kechan, the party
proceeded to the sea-shore, where they arrived wet and wearied, and
passed the night upon a rock. They made a fire to warm themselves, and
endeavoured still to maintain hope and cheerfulness. How picturesque and
singular must have been the group, thus awaiting the moment which should
perhaps only conduct them to fresh perils! As they reclined among the
heath which grew on the rock, four wherries, filled with armed men,
caused the little party to extinguish their fire, and to hide themselves
in the heather. The wherries, which made at first for the shore, sailed
by to the southward, within a gun-shot of the spot where Charles Edward
and Flora were concealed. At eight o'clock in the evening of Saturday,
the twenty-eighth of June 1746, the Prince and she set sail from
Benbecula for Skye.

The evening on which they quitted the shores which had been to them such
scen