He paused abruptly, fearing he had said too much. But Muckle John was apparently intent upon the hillside.
"Look," said he, "they're coming straight for us. Now, Rob, it will be touch and go, and do what I tell you without question, for I know this country like my ain hand; and I tell ye at once that if we are not twenty mile on the other side of them before nightfall, we might as well cut our ain throats. And, Rob, mind it's you they're after, no me. Should you care to hand anything over for safe keeping, just in case—ye ken—" and he paused, looking over Rob's head.
"That I cannot," said Rob firmly.
"Then follow me," was all the answer Muckle John gave, and putting a huge rock between them and their enemies, they ran swiftly slant-wise up the slope until they reached the summit, where for a moment Muckle John looked back. The great half-moon formation of the ascending Highlanders was moving quickly upwards.
"This is no red-coat work," he gasped, "but tartan against tartan, and fox hunting fox," and away they went along the opposite side of the hill, just low enough to miss the sky-line.
As luck would have it that part of the hill was very bare and empty of cover, and ere they had gone half a mile a distant shout warned them that they were seen, and that the whole force of their pursuers was now upon their line of flight.
Rob saw a sudden tightening of Muckle John's mouth, and now it ceased to be a game of hide and seek, but a race for dear life. The pace was terrible. Rob's lungs were bursting with the straining, so that red flashes of light swam before his eyes.
"Quicker!" cried Muckle John, "they are gaining! Oh, can ye no mak' a sprint, Rob—only a hundred yards?"
For a while Rob struggled on, stumbling and gasping, until at last his foot caught in a tuft of heather, and he fell heavily to the ground. Without a word or pause, Muckle John, who was leading by some ten feet, turned swiftly, and picking him up, continued his wild race for the broken rocks that lay before them.
Two hundred yards behind came the foremost Highlanders, leaping over the ground in bounds, their claymores ready in their hands. A minute, and Muckle John had passed among the rocks, then doubling right and left, he sped towards a monstrous boulder, and scrambling up, pulled Rob on top. Now on the back of this boulder lay another great stone poised upon it, and carrying Rob over his shoulder, he clambered up and so to a cleft in the side of the precipice which fronted the hill.