, yet sometimes by merit. The Prince himself, when he gave me my
rank, called me the Black Colonel in compliment to my beard, which
nobody has ever singed. The Black Colonel I remained when the Stuart
army melted in the bloody furrows of Culloden, and in truth I have, and
need not deny it, left my name in many quarters. I took it with me
when I sought the safe retreat of my own corner of the Highlands, among
friends, and I submit it with pride to you, Captain Ian Gordon."

He was aflame between wrath and egotism, and I was afraid the contagion
might catch me, which was the least desirable thing, because there lies
the road to a losing cause. But, next moment, he laughed and said,
"No, no; temper beseems neither high nor low, being kitchen work. You
are sensible enough, Captain Gordon, to let a full man have his talk,
and I have not finished yet." He thought for a moment, as if he
expected me to say something, but I only got up from my somewhat hard
seat, as if preparing to go.

"Not yet," he said; "stay a little, because, since you are here, it
would be a pity if anything remained unclear between us. I gather that
you see no course for it but open war, that you refuse the road of
solution which my proposal about the Forbes estate opens out. Might I
ask why you are so unsympathetic to that idea, which would serve every
interest?"

"I am," I declared hotly, "neither a matchmaker, especially for
adventurers, nor a scheming politician, and on both grounds I decline
to have anything to do with you. Your insistence compels me to speak
with a plainness which I would rather have avoided, but you must blame
yourself. It's a far cry to Loch Awe, and a farther cry to the pardon
of the Black Colonel, but he thinks it might be contrived if he had
Marget Forbes and her property for a trump card. A pretty scheme, but
not one which my commission for King George instructs me to
countenance."

Now I, in turn, had gone aflame, despite all my resolve to the
contrary, but if I had spoken the name of Marget Forbes it was, I tried
to reflect, as if it had no intimate meaning for me. That would have
been to blunder doubly, because it would show me personally, nay,
intimately, interested.

The Black Colonel had been silent, and, when I ceased talking, I
noticed a strained, even a queer, look in his eye. Was he counting up
some element of the game which, thus far, was unknown to me? For when
the minds of men rub fiercely agai