Rob kept silence. He could not understand a word they said in their queer, nasal twang. Vainly his eyes searched the desolate, wind-swept moor. The clash of battle was long since past. No hope of friendly succour lay there.
"Haste ye!" cried one of the four men who sat together. "There is other work. Pistol him and be done with it."
At that the fellow who held Rob stepped back a pace, and drawing his pistol, raised it and fired deliberately at him. Had Rob not ducked it would have killed him as he stood.
"A miss!" cried the others, and with an exclamation the man snatched a loaded pistol from one of his comrades, and prepared to finish the business.
Rob stood very still this time. He was too weak to run. The sooner it was all over the better.
The man was poising the pistol in his hand; he had shut one eye, and was glaring at Rob with the other. Already the trigger was moving, when a stern voice shouted "Halt!" and an English officer, very resplendently dressed, and with a white peruke, snatched the pistol from the man's hand. The other four staggered to their feet, and stood at attention.
The officer, whose back was turned on Rob, appeared to stare for a moment at the soldiers. Then, throwing the pistol upon the ground, he folded his arms and began to speak with a strong English accent, as baffling to Rob as that of his captors.
"What does this mean?" he cried. "Would you shoot a wounded boy?"
"Our orders were no quarter," growled the man who had so nearly killed Rob.
"Take your orders from me," thundered the officer in a blaze of anger, "or there will be more gibbets in Inverness than you had reckoned upon, and with fine, red-coated gentry upon them belike," at which Rob saw the fellows stir uneasily, and cast apprehensive glances at one another.