But the hand of fate was against this wild venture from the first. Morton and Kinnoull were both dead of a fever within a few weeks after they had met at Kirkwall. Sir James Douglas, Morton's brother, was sent to Denmark with a message to Montrose urging his immediate coming to Scotland. He need not wait to bring an army with him; his own presence in the country would at once raise twenty thousand men for the King's service. Kinnoull had found time, before the fatal sickness seized him, to announce his safe arrival, and to assure his chief that he was "gaped after with that expectation that the Jews look after their Messiah." All agreed that Scotland was weary of the bondage of the Covenant, and impatient for a deliverer. But Montrose had been advised that despatches were on their way from the King in Jersey, and had no choice but to wait for them. It were better for the reputation of Charles that those despatches had never been written. They contained, indeed, the George and riband of the Garter, with many flattering words; but they contained also words which, written on the eve of the fatal conference of Breda, and read, as we now read them, by the light of its results, convict the King, if not of deliberate treachery, at least of a cruel disregard of his general's honour and life. They told him of the reopened negotiations with the Covenant and of the approaching conference: they urged him to instant and vigorous action; and they assured him that nothing should be conceded on his sovereign's part which could offer the least impediment to his proceedings, or the least diminution of his authority. And all the while Charles knew well that the one inevitable condition, whatever else might be taken or left, without which no basis of an understanding with the Covenant was possible, must be the dismissal of James Graham from his service. Elizabeth of Bohemia, who knew her nephew's disposition too well, had always foreseen this risk. "I pray God keep the King in his constancy to you and his other true friends and servants," she had written to Montrose; and through all her letters to him ran the half-concealed warning that more danger was to be expected from this quarter than from his open foes. But Montrose, if he had ever shared the Queen's fears or remembered them now, had no eyes for any part of this cruel letter but that which counselled instant action. He had already, in default of his own presence, despatched another and much larger force to the Orkneys under Kinnoull's brother William Hay, who had now succeeded to the title. But again the fates were adverse. A violent storm arose on the passage; the greater part of the little fleet went down at sea, or was dashed to pieces on those rugged coasts; out of twelve hundred men only two hundred, with a few field-pieces, came safe to land. Montrose himself did not reach Kirkwall till the end of March, accompanied by many of his old officers and a small but eager body of gentlemen volunteers.