Months of flitting to and fro, of lurking in the heather and hiding in caves and ruined huts, followed, and at last news came to him that two French vessels were off the coast. Losing no time, he started off for the very spot where fourteen months before he had landed so full of hope. The ships were riding at anchor, a boat moored to a rock awaited him. The prince jumped in, and in a few moments was climbing the sides of the vessel, safe at last. And here we leave him while his ship is rocking on the wave, and the stern men upon whom he has brought such sorrow and suffering wave him a last farewell amidst their streaming tears. We will not dwell upon the later years of his life—years of misery and degradation, when the once gay, kind, brave, and loyal prince sank into a fierce, shabby, homeless, and almost friendless adventurer. For many years he moved about like a shadow, finding his way more than once to England. Giving way to drink, he sank deeper and deeper into the mire. Let us not dwell upon the sad scenes of his later life. Let us think of him in his best moments, as the man who ennobled the Highland race for all time by calling forth a devotion, loyalty, and love the fame of which can never die. [Illustration] [Illustration: =BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE.= (_From the painting by John Pettie, R.A._)] [Illustration: =AFTER CULLODEN: ROYALIST SOLDIERS SEARCHING FOR JACOBITE FUGITIVES.= (_From the picture by John Seymour Lucas, R.A., in the Tate Gallery. By permission of Messrs. Frost and Reed._)] [Illustration: =A Royal Fugitive.= (_From the picture by Allan Stewart. Exhibited in the Royal Academy, 1907._)] [Illustration] Chapter XVII. MAKERS OF EMPIRE. ROBERT CLIVE, THE DARING IN WAR. “_War, disguised as commerce, came;_ _Britain, carrying sword and flame,_ _Won an empire._” YOU are now permitted to peep into the citadel of Arcot, the old capital of the Carnatic. Its walls are ruinous, its ramparts unfitted for guns, its battlements too low to protect soldiers. The town is in the hands of four thousand native troops, assisted by one hundred and fifty Frenchmen. Within the fort there are but a hundred and twenty Europeans and two hundred Sepoys. Their stock of provisions is very low. At the request of the Sepoys the Europeans take the rice, while the faithful natives contrive to keep body and soul together on the water in which it has been boiled. The defenders are daily diminishing in number from starvation, disease, and the musketry fire of the enemy, but there is no talk of surrender. You judge that their leader must be a man of no common courage and resolution, and you are right. Within yonder room their young English captain is placidly sleeping, though he knows that the enemy is about to assault his feeble post.