ng; and to remind you that when I besought
you not to send him into action to-day, I had no time to give you
reasons."

"This is extraordinary talk, sir. I am not used to command the Morays
under advice from my subalterns. And in this instance I had reasons
for not even listening to you." He was silent. "Moreover," I
continued, "you may as well know, though I am under no obligation
to tell you, that I do most certainly not regret having given that
permission to one who justified it by a signal service to his king and
country."

"But would you have sent him _knowing_ that he must die? Colonel," he
went on rapidly, before I could interrupt, "I beseech you to listen. I
knew he had only a few hours to live. I saw his wraith last night.
It stood behind his shoulder in the room when in Captain Murray's
presence he challenged me to fight him. You are a Highlander, sir: you
may be sceptical about the second sight; but at least you must have
heard many claim it. I swear positively that I saw Mr. Mackenzie's
wraith last night, and for that reason, and no other, tried to defer
the meeting. To fight him, knowing he must die, seemed to me as bad
as murder. Afterwards, when the alarm sounded and you took off his
arrest, I knew that his fate must overtake him--that my refusal had
done no good. I tried to interfere again, and you would not hear.
Naturally you would not hear; and very likely, if you had, his fate
would have found him in some other way. That is what I try to believe.
I hope it is not selfish, sir; but the doubt tortures me."

"Mr. Urquhart," I asked, "is this the only occasion on which you have
possessed the second sight, or had reason to think so?"

"No, sir."

"Was it the first or only time last night you believed you were
granted it?"

"It was the _second_ time last night," he said steadily.

We had been walking back to my bivouac fire, and in the light of it I
turned and said: "I will hear your story at the first opportunity. I
will not promise to believe, but I will hear and weigh it. Go now and
join the others in their search."

He saluted, and strode away into the darkness. The opportunity I
promised him never came. At eleven o'clock next morning we began our
withdrawal, and within twenty-four hours the battle of Waterloo
had begun. In one of the most heroic feats of that day--the famous
resistance of Pack's brigade--Mr. Urquhart was among the first to
fall.

III

Thus it happened that an affair w