Already the rooms above us were astir. I heard windows thrown open,
voices calling questions, feet running.

"Yes," said I, "it is business at length, and for the while this
inquiry must end. Captain Murray, look to your company. You,
Major, see that the lads tumble out quick to the alarm-post. One
moment!"--and Captain Murray halted with his hand on the door--"It is
understood that for the present no word of to-night's affair passes
our lips." I turned to Mr. Mackenzie and answered the question I read
in the lad's eyes. "Yes, sir; for the present I take off your arrest.
Get your sword. It shall be your good fortune to answer the enemy
before answering me."

To my amazement Mr. Urquhart interposed. He was, if possible, paler
and more deeply agitated than before. "Sir, I entreat you not to allow
Mr. Mackenzie to go. I have reasons--I was mistaken just now--"

"Mistaken, sir?"

"Not in what I saw. I refused to fight him--under a mistake. I
thought--"

But I cut his stammering short. "As for you," I said, "the most
charitable construction I can put on your behaviour is to believe you
mad. For the present you, too, are free to go and do your duty. Now
leave me. Business presses, and I am sick and angry at the sight of
you."

It was just two in the morning when I reached the alarm-post. Brussels
by this time was full of the rolling of drums and screaming of pipes;
and the regiment formed up in darkness rendered tenfold more confusing
by a mob of citizens, some wildly excited, others paralysed by terror,
and all intractable. We had, moreover, no small trouble to disengage
from our ranks the wives and families who had most unwisely followed
many officers abroad, and now clung to their dear ones bidding them
farewell. To end this most distressing scene I had in some instances
to use a roughness which it still afflicts me to remember. Yet in
actual time it was soon overhand dawn scarcely breaking when the
Morays with the other regiments of Pack's brigade filed out of the
park and fell into stride on the road which leads southward to
Charleroi.

In this record it would be immaterial to describe either our march or
the since-famous engagement which terminated it. Very early we began
to hear the sound of heavy guns far ahead and to make guesses at their
distance; but it was close upon two in the afternoon before we reached
the high ground above Quatre Bras, and saw the battle spread below
us like a picture. The Prince