e questions to have puzzled the brains of Aristotle
himself. Ballantrae turned to me with a face all wrinkled up, and his
teeth showing in his mouth, like what I have read of people starving;
he said no word, but his whole appearance was a kind of dreadful
question.

"They may be of the English side," I whispered; "and think! the best we
could then hope is to begin this over again."

"I know--I know," he said. "Yet it must come to a plunge at last." And
he suddenly plucked out his coin, shook it in his closed hands, looked
at it, and then lay down with his face in the dust.

_Addition by Mr. Mackellar_.--I drop the Chevalier's narration at this
point because the couple quarrelled and separated the same day; and the
Chevalier's account of the quarrel seems to me (I must confess) quite
incompatible with the nature of either of the men. Henceforth they
wandered alone, undergoing extraordinary sufferings; until first one and
then the other was picked up by a party from Fort St. Frederick. Only
two things are to be noted. And first (as most important for my purpose)
that the Master, in the course of his miseries, buried his treasure, at
a point never since discovered, but of which he took a drawing in his
own blood on the lining of his hat. And second, that on his coming thus
penniless to the Fort, he was welcomed like a brother by the Chevalier,
who thence paid his way to France. The simplicity of Mr. Burke's
character leads him at this point to praise the Master exceedingly; to
an eye more worldly-wise, it would seem it was the Chevalier alone that
was to be commended. I have the more pleasure in pointing to this really
very noble trait of my esteemed correspondent, as I fear I may have
wounded him immediately before. I have refrained from comments on any of
his extraordinary and (in my eyes) immoral opinions, for I know him to
be jealous of respect. But his version of the quarrel is really more
than I can reproduce; for I knew the Master myself, and a man more
insusceptible of fear is not conceivable. I regret this oversight of the
Chevalier's, and all the more because the tenor of his narrative (set
aside a few flourishes) strikes me as highly ingenuous.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] _Note by Mr. Mackellar_.--Should not this be Alan _Breck_ Stewart,
afterwards notorious as the Appin murderer? The Chevalier is
sometimes very weak on names.

[3] _Note by Mr. Mackellar_.--This Teach of the _Sarah_ must not be
co