Chapter XVI: The Cave in Glenmoriston

"Muckle John," said Rob, as the cart came to a standstill, and his companion had kept a tight mouth for a full half-hour after his last curt words, "Muckle John, why did you rescue me?"

"Why indeed?" he replied dourly enough.

Acting on a sudden impulse Rob leapt over the side of the cart upon the bank of grass beside it, and began to walk in the direction they had come.

"Where are you going?" cried Muckle John, startled for once.

Rob paused and spoke over his shoulder.

"I'm not the one to take favours from you nor any one," he said. "I know fine why you wanted to keep me safe; and now that you've lost the thing you sought I'm no more to you than a peewit's egg." With that he set off again towards Fort Augustus.

"Stop, Rob!" shouted Muckle John. "What's taken ye?" and flinging his legs over the side of the cart, he began to run in pursuit.

"Rob!" he cried again, and came up with him.

"Well?"

"What has come over ye?" he asked.

"Would ye hang yersel' just to spite me? What's done is done, Rob; and I'm no perhaps the saint ye took me for. But save ye I will, and that's the naked truth."

"Let me pass!" cried Rob, and took a step to the right of him.

"Very good," he replied grimly, "but come ye will," and catching him into his huge arms, he flung him suddenly upon the ground and bound his wrists. Struggle as Rob would it availed him less than nothing, and so at last, with hands tied together and a dirk-point in his ribs, he must needs march in the direction Muckle John wished.

For a full hour they trudged on thus, leaving the cart to care for itself.

Then at last he spoke.

"Stop!" he said, holding out his wrists. "I have had enough of this."

"Brawly spoken!" said Muckle John, and he cut the thongs.

"Where," asked Rob, "are you taking me, for I have important business in the south?"

"What might that be?"

"It is the warning of Lord Lovat."

"It is done already; I have sent a man two days since."

"Am I, then, your prisoner?"

His captor broke into a laugh.

"Just a visitor, Rob," he replied, "and nothing more."

In this manner they travelled northwards, passing through wild, desolate glens and black ravines, scaling rugged hills, seeing few upon the road, and more in the heather. Several times in the night they saw the camp-fires of the English, but Muckle John seemed as familiar with the country even in black darkness. During the day they lay close hid in some cranny of the rocks, or skulked upon the crest of a hill, watching the surrounding district for sight of moving troops.

It was nearing nightfall two days after Rob's escape from Fort Augustus when they entered a small, precipitous glen, shut in by lowering, ragged crags, while through its tortuous course a burn was drumming in a melancholy undertone. No drearier spot had ever met Rob's eye. Deserted even by the eagles, it might have been a habitation of the dead.

Now at the side of the burn a shattered pine tree was standing against the evening sky, and as such gruesome thoughts passed through Rob's mind he raised his eyes, and a cry came and died unuttered on his lips. For on a solitary branch about the height of a tall man from the heather, a human head was stuck with the hair still fluttering in the breeze; while underneath dangled the faded uniform of an English soldier.

"Look!" cried Rob.

But Muckle John only nodded absently.

"They're as common as berries hereabouts," he replied.

"Hereabouts?" repeated Rob. "Then whose land is this?"

For answer Muckle John sprang upon a rock and with his hands hollowed about his mouth, sent a clear, penetrating call. From up the hillside a reply came swift as an echo.

"Some call it," he said, "the country of Muckle John."

Before Rob could reply several Highlanders came running down the hill-side, and greeted his companion with every sign of respect and pleasure, all of which he took very naturally.

Then passing onward they came to a narrow defile with a man on guard at the entrance, and continuing their way, reached the opening to a cave.

In the sheltered ground which lay before the cave three men were engaged around a fire, and the smell of cooking drifted in a cloud about their stooping forms.

"Rob," said Muckle John, making way for him to pass, "will you step inside, for if I am not mistaken there is one who will be pleased to see ye."

Without a word, but anxious to know to whom Muckle John could refer, Rob entered the cave. For a moment the darkness of the place made him think he was alone. Then of a sudden he made out the form of a man lying upon the floor; and with a quick fear he knelt down and recognized Archibald Cameron, bound hand and foot.

It took Rob but a couple of slashes with his skian dhu and Cameron was free of his bonds.

Sitting up he groaned and surveyed Rob with a whimsical smile.

"This is a queer manner of hospitality," said he. "If ye had mentioned the name o' the gentleman you were serving I would have taken the hint kindly."

"I serving?" broke in Rob, "I do not understand."

Cameron shrugged his shoulders cynically.

"Maybe ye do not remember the letter," he said very politely, "maybe ye are not Rob Fraser?"

"Dr. Cameron," replied Rob, "this is no time for quarrelling. I know of no letter, and I am a prisoner like yourself. We are both in the hands of Muckle John."

"Muckle John! So that's how the wind blows, eh? Oh, I begin to see. Poor Rob, you're aye the scapegoat. Muckle John, indeed!"

"You know of him?"

Cameron snorted.

"Wha does not?" said he, "there's few between here and Rome has not heard tell of Muckle John."

"Then is he Hanoverian?"

"He's mair like a kite that hovers above the squabbles of other folk."

"Then what does he want with us?"

"Money."

"It's little of that I have."

"You, Rob? Oh no!" And he smiled in a way as though the idea tickled him.

Very greatly puzzled, Rob fell back on silence, and presently Muckle John himself entered the place.

He was in Highland dress and made a great appearance of surprise at seeing Cameron, which ill accorded with the reception that unfortunate gentleman gave him. Then turning, he clapped Rob upon the shoulder and bade them both be seated.

"It's poor hospitality," said he in Gaelic; "but these are sad times, Dr. Cameron. Old campaigners like us know there's thin rations when one takes to the heather."

"Come, sir," replied Cameron, still standing and replying in Scots, "what is it you want? I ken ye fine, and well ye know it. It is not for the pleasure of my company that your cutthroats brought me here. But I warn you there will be a reckoning for this. There will be a bonny ending for you, sir, when it is known in Lochaber."

"Lochaber," sneered Muckle John. "While there is a guineapiece buried in Lochaber neither you nor the Prince himself would raise a Cameron to his side."

"Braw words for a nameless man," cried Cameron bitterly, but very red about the neck. "Hark, Rob, for maybe ye will never hear the like again."

"I am no nameless man!" roared Muckle John; "and well ye know it."

Cameron smiled quietly to himself.

"Then the greater the smirch on your clan--though I'm no just remembering the tartan," he said.

At that Muckle John, flinging back his stool, leaped to his feet, and called out a name which no man Lochaber way can hear in silence.

For an instant, indeed, Cameron seemed on the point of springing upon him; then restraining himself with an effort, he spoke in a very polite tone:

"You will perceive," said he, "I have no sword."

But now that the thing was said Muckle John appeared greatly put about and anxious to smooth it over. He shrugged his shoulders and fiddled with the brooch upon his plaid.

"Tuts, Dr. Cameron!" he said. "I spoke over warmly."

But Cameron only frowned and shook his head.

"I have no sword," he said again.

There was no mistaking his meaning. With a shrug Muckle John turned and left the cave.

"Do not fight him, doctor," broke in Rob. "It is sheer madness. Oh, how could ye fall into such a trap? It is to kill you he led you on."

"Rob," replied Cameron, "you are too young to understand the ways of a Highland gentleman."

"But surely you are more service to the Prince..."

"Whisht, boy! Dinna haver. Ye heard what word he used. A man's name means mair than a whole clan of Princes."

After that there was nothing more to be said.

The doorway darkened again and Muckle John entered with two claymores and targes.

"It is lighter outside, Dr. Cameron," he said, as though they were about to discuss a friendly bout together.

"As you will," replied Cameron with equanimity, and bowed to him to take the lead. But Muckle John bowed still lower, and with his head cocked very high Cameron passed through.

A level place of about ten feet square lay before the cave, and clustered on a ledge above sprawled and sat some dozen ragged Highlanders, who evinced no sort of interest whatever in the impending encounter.

Cameron swung his blade once or twice and tested the steel upon the ground. The targe he threw aside. Then taking off their coats they rolled up their sleeves, and saluted each other. Seeing that the thing was past mending, Rob took his seat very sadly upon a mound and wondered how it would all end. The grey, desolate sky, the silence of utter solitude, the cluster of dirty, unmoved Highlanders, and above and upon them all the smirr of thin hill rain, made his heart sink like lead.

And in the weary greyness of it all, two men about to fight to the death over a hasty word. It was a situation typically Highland.

Cameron, as sturdy a figure as one could wish to see, was standing on guard right foot foremost, his left arm behind his back.

Muckle John was facing him, his long hair loose about his neck, his vast forearms bared, perfectly motionless, a figure of colossal strength.

Suddenly there was a faint scuffle and footsteps in the entrance way.

"Dr. Cameron--Dr. Cameron!" said a low voice, with the round softness of a foreign accent.

They all looked towards the narrow passage which led from the valley below, and Rob sprang to his feet at the sight. For standing there, dressed in faded, tattered clothes, thin and harassed, but with a smile upon his lips, was Prince Charlie.