After that there was nothing more to be said.
The doorway darkened again and Muckle John entered with two claymores and targes.
"It is lighter outside, Dr. Cameron," he said, as though they were about to discuss a friendly bout together.
"As you will," replied Cameron with equanimity, and bowed to him to take the lead. But Muckle John bowed still lower, and with his head cocked very high Cameron passed through.
A level place of about ten feet square lay before the cave, and clustered on a ledge above sprawled and sat some dozen ragged Highlanders, who evinced no sort of interest whatever in the impending encounter.
Cameron swung his blade once or twice and tested the steel upon the ground. The targe he threw aside. Then taking off their coats they rolled up their sleeves, and saluted each other. Seeing that the thing was past mending, Rob took his seat very sadly upon a mound and wondered how it would all end. The grey, desolate sky, the silence of utter solitude, the cluster of dirty, unmoved Highlanders, and above and upon them all the smirr of thin hill rain, made his heart sink like lead.
And in the weary greyness of it all, two men about to fight to the death over a hasty word. It was a situation typically Highland.
Cameron, as sturdy a figure as one could wish to see, was standing on guard right foot foremost, his left arm behind his back.
Muckle John was facing him, his long hair loose about his neck, his vast forearms bared, perfectly motionless, a figure of colossal strength.
Suddenly there was a faint scuffle and footsteps in the entrance way.