“Can I not break the tide with a barrier of slain steeds?” he said. Then swift as the lightning flashes in the heavens, with his right arm he swung her over her own dead horse, while with his left he raised a fallen pike. He leaped back and kneeled before the horse, gripping the pike full firmly, whose butt rested on the ground, while with his right hand he drew forth a pistol from his holster.
On they came, they towered into the sky, the air was filled with their shouting and the thunder of their hoofs. A single man! They heeded him not.
He fired, and the horse that would have trampled him fell low. Neck and croup over it rolled upon the ground and the horse behind, that strove to leap above it, received the pike in its heart, while Ian narrowly avoided destruction under the falling mass.
Then as a stream meets a boulder in its course and straightway divides on either hand, so passed the warriors on the left and right.
The rider of the first fallen horse lay in the throes of death, but the second rushed upon him with his sword so that the Duke had but scant time to draw and defend himself, and the sword cleft the Duke’s helm and the wound was deep.
Yet it was no long time they fought, for with swift skill the Duke drove his sword throughout his body and he fell with a loud cry to the ground, stretching his arms to heaven, and Ian drew out the steel and with the blood the life rushed forth and black night covered his eyes.
But Ian, even as he did so, turned to where Aline lay, her face all white amid the ruddy gold. He leaned above her. She was not dead, nor even sorely hurt, but stunned and dazed and cut about and bruised.
He raised her with great tenderness and bore her from the scene of carnage just as the evening fell. A cold breath blew upon his face and he fancied he heard a voice that hissed—“Woe’s me, we are foiled; it is on us the blow has fallen, even ere the darkness came. Too late, too late.” At that moment the sun sank and the light vanished behind the hills. The rout was now complete. Here and there a few individuals made stand against their pursuers, while little groups of wounded men were crying for succour. The haugh was littered with so many corpses of those who had gone forth that morning in the healthful beauty of their youth, that it was a sight most grievous to behold. Ian stumbled with his burden. He himself had been twice sadly wounded again. Whither should he go? There were no houses in sight.
He remembered, however, that the house of the Laird of Dalwhinnie was only about two miles away. There was nowhere else to go, but both the new wounds and the old were exceeding sore and it was with great difficulty that he carried her.
He bore her to the foot of the hill and summoned four troopers, and with their assistance mounted a horse. He would not let any one else touch the child and, accompanied by the troopers, he rode to the house.