Inverlochy's a perilous place,' said she, 'and I'd be wae
to see the heather above the gall.'"

John Splendid's back was to him as he sat at the prow of a boat coming
close on our stern, but I saw the skin of his neck flame. He never
turned: he made no answer for a moment, and when he spoke it was with a
laughing allusion in English to the folly of portents.

This was so odd an attitude for a man usually superstitious to take up,
that I engaged him on the point whenever we landed.

"You seem to have no great respect for the Dark Dame's wizardy," said I.

He took me aside from some of the clansmen who could overhear.

"Never let these lads think that you either lightly Dame Dubh or make
overmuch of her talk about the heather and gall, for they prize her
blessing, strangely enough, and they might lay too great stress on its
failure. You catch me?"

I nodded to keep him going, and turned the thing over in my mind.

"What do you think of the prophecy yourself?" he asked; "is it not
familiar?"

In a flash it came to my mind that I had half-hinted to him at what the
Macaulay woman had said in the fold of Elrigmore.

"I think," said I, "the less the brooding on these things the better."

If we had our own misgivings about the end of this jaunt, our companions
had none. They plunged with hearts almost jocular into the woods on
Lochaber's edge, in a bright sunshine that glinted on the boss of the
target and on the hilt of the knife or sword, and we came by the middle
of the day to the plain on which lay the castle of Inverlochy--a staunch
quadrangular edifice with round towers at the angles, and surrounded by
a moat that smelled anything but freshly. And there we lay for a base,
and thence we sent out round Keppoch and Locheil some dashing companies
that carried on the work we began in Athole.

Auchinbreac's notion, for he was more than my lord the guide of this
enterprise, was to rest a day or two in the castle and then follow on
the heels of Montrose, who, going up Loch Ness-side, as we knew he was,
would find himself checked in front by Seaforth, and so hemmed between
two fires.

It was about three o'clock on Wednesday afternoon when Argile sent for
M'Iver and myself to suggest a reconnoitring excursion up the Great Glen
by the side of the lochs, to see how far the enemy might have reached
before us.

"I'm sorry to lose your company, gentlemen," said he, "even for a day;
but this is a delicate embassy, and I ca