The Black Colonel | Page 4

all this, sir?"
"I don't know," I answered simply, naturally, truthfully, to his charge, for it was a charge in words and in directness.
"You don't," he went on, and I could not miss the tone which was like the growl of a dog, an ill-natured dog; not like that of my own little Scots terrier, Rob, whose bark is only meant to give himself confidence and never had the snap of biting in it.
"You don't!" repeated the Black Colonel. "I must believe you, though a suspicious man might read the signs otherwise. Still, why should you have kept the red-coats from their sleep this night and morn, in the castles of Braemar and Corgarff? There is no reason, for a talk between Highland gentlemen, if so we be, about a Highland lady, whose ladyship is beyond doubt, needed no garrison as audience. No, no, if the red-coats had been summoned to round-up some poor Jacobite devil, say myself, Captain Ian Gordon would have been with his men, as a soldier should, much as he might--and I put this to his credit--have disliked the mission."
It was idle for me to pretend any misunderstanding of the Black Colonel's meaning. He was taunting me with suspicions which he would not bring himself to believe, having a generous side to his nature, a state of mind that has inflicted much suffering on the human race, ever since the world began to go round. Mostly it occurs between men, for women are more elemental, more red in beak and claw, even when the claw is bejewelled, which indeed may give it another sharpness.
Could I blame him? Not to his face, at all events, because that would be to notice his challenge, to admit that it was not unnatural on his part. Events must be my guarantee, and if there were to be no more, well, let him say quickly why he had asked me very specially to meet him on an urgent private affair. Yes, although it were to have a casual ending, such as characterizes half the affairs of life.
Aye! good thinking, my friends, but our relations were cast in a sterner mould, and they were not to take the road of well-being. This became manifest when the now growing dawn lightly touched the eastern door of the Pass at its highest crag. The Black Colonel put his hand to his eyes, using them as you would a spy-glass, made a hawk-like sweep of the point I have indicated, and murmured harshly, "A red-coat, ah!"
Quickly he followed the wispy, growing light towards the western end of the Pass, and after another moment of hawkish searching growled: "A red-coat there also! It has been shrewdly arranged, this affair, Captain Gordon. My congratulations, for you have earned them well, as well, perhaps, as something else from me."
I said nothing, and indeed I was too full of surprise to think, except in a wondering fashion. It was only by an effort of attention that I heard the Black Colonel's further words, cursed out in a wrath not bred of any anxiety for himself, but, naturally enough, directed at me.
"So the moving picture declares itself, my dear, thoughtful kinsman," he hissed. "The red-coats from Braemar are at the western end of the Pass, those from Corgarff are at the eastern end, and the Black Colonel is within somewhere--isn't he?--keeping a private meeting with an officer in his Georgian Majesty's uniform, an officer and a gentleman! Shrewdly planned, as I say, shrewdly planned, and I suppose you want to intrigue me here until I cannot get away any more. Would you think of trying to hold me yourself, eh? It would be like your adventurous spirit? No!"
This was said with a rough sneer, and the Black Colonel made the sting sharper by adding, "You'll be thinking it an assured capture, with the ends of the Pass sealed by red-coats and its sides so steep that only those tough sheep over there can climb them."
"Truth," said I quickly, gaining my tongue, "will force you to eat those words, for I knew nothing of all this. It will be a bitter meal for you to digest, if I, by good chance, am there to assist you."
"A Highland welcome will be yours," quoth he arrogantly; "a welcome as warm as if I were to bring my riding whip round your shoulders now."
His words, cracking as if they were a lash, stung me beyond endurance. I made a step to strike him, and we might have been at it, like common brawlers, only he saved us from that shame. He had been waiting with his left foot in the stirrup. When I drove at him he swung on to the back of Mack, who turned half round, as a spirited horse does in the