The Prince, while the French ships were beating inshore, took Lochiel aside. Through the wild campaign they had been like twin brothers, these two, showing the same keen faith, the like courage under hardship. “Lochiel, you know the country better than I. You’re bred to your good land, while I was only born to it. You will tell me where the Isle of Skye lies from here.” “Yonder,” said the other, pointing across the grey-blue haze of summer seas. And the Prince stood silent, thinking of the victory there in Skye--the victory that had left him wearier than Culloden’s sick defeat had done. And Lochiel, who had had his own affairs to attend to lately, and had been aloof from gossip, wondered as he saw the trouble in the other’s face. The Prince turned at last. “Lochiel,” he said, with a tired smile, “how does the Usurper’s proclamation run? Thirty thousand pounds on my head--dead or alive! Well, alive or dead, I wish this tattered body of mine were still in Skye--in Skye, Lochiel, where I left the soul of me.” “You are sad, your Highness----” “Sad? Nay, I’ve waded deeper than mere sadness, like the Skye mists out yonder. Well, we stand where we stand, friend,” he added, with sharp return from dreams, “and the ship is bringing to.” There was still a little while before the boats were lowered from the shore, and the Prince, pacing up and down the strand, encountered Rupert. “A fine ending!” he said, with temperate bitterness. “I landed in Lochaber from France with seven gentlemen. I go back with a few more. This is the fruit of your toil, Mr. Royd--and of mine.” And, “No, by your leave,” said Rupert. “Your Highness has lit a fire that will never die--a fire of sheer devotion----” “Ah! the courtier speaks.” Rupert’s voice broke, harshly and without any warning. He saw his Prince in evil case, when he should have been a conqueror. He remembered the night rides, the faith, that had had the crowning of the Stuart as their goal. “A broken heart speaks--a heart broken in your service, sir,” he said. The man’s strength, his candid, deep simplicity, struck home to the Prince, bringing a foolish mist about his eyes. “Your love goes deep as that?” he said. “It goes deeper than my love of life, your Highness.” So then, after a silence, the other laid a strong kindly hand on his shoulder. “You’ll go far and well for me, sir--but put away that superstition of the broken heart. Believe me, for I know”--he glanced across the misty stretch of sea that divided him from Skye--“there are broken hopes, and broken dreams, and disaster sobbing at one’s ears, but a man--a man, sir, does not permit his heart to break. You and I--I think we have our pride.” When the boats grounded on the beach, the Prince waited till his gentlemen got first aboard, and at last there were only himself and Rupert left standing on the shore. “You will precede me, Mr. Royd. It is my privilege just now to follow, not to lead,” said the Prince.