"Drop that, sir, if you please," said Rob, "or in you go again!"
He began to reply with a volley of oaths, but began only, for the same instant the black water was again choking him. Might Hector of the Stags have had his way, he would have kept there the murderer of AN CABRACH MOR till he had to be dived for. Rob on his part was determined he should not come out until he gave his word that he would not swear.
"Come! Come!" gasped Sercombe at length, after many attempts to get out which, the bystanders easily foiled—"you don't mean to drown me, do you?"
"We mean to drown your bad language. Promise to use no more on this peat-moss," returned Rob.
"Damn the promise you get from me!" he gasped.
"Men must have patience with a suffering brother!" remarked Rob, and seated himself, with a few words in Gaelic which drew a hearty laugh from the men about him, on a heap of turf to watch the unyielding flounder in the peat-hole, where there was no room to swim. He had begun to think the man would drown in his contumacy, when his ears welcomed the despairing words—
"Take me out, and I will promise anything."
He was scarcely able to move till one of the keepers gave him whisky, but in a few minutes he was crawling homeward after his host, who, parent of little streams, was doing his best to walk over rocks and through bogs with the help of Valentine's arm, chattering rather than muttering something about "proper legal fashion."
In the mean time the chief lay shot in the right arm and chest, but not dangerously wounded by the scattering lead.
He had lost a good deal of blood, and was faint—a sensation new to him. The women had done what they could, but that was only binding his arm, laying him in a dry place, and giving him water. He would not let them recall the men till the enemy was gone.