"'Tis the devils of the Stubbenkamer who have done this!"
"It was not the devils," cried a terrible voice from the bosom of the lake; "but only my brother Nikelas and I."
"We can only suppose," adds Cluverius, "that the unclean spirits, being wroth at the abolition of their worship, still love to play their tricks where idolatry was practised of old."
After considerable labour in piercing the thick barriers of tangled briers, furze, and roots of old and decayed trees, that encircled the lake, but shrouded from Bandolo's eye by the foliage with which our dark green tartans blended, crawling on our hands and knees, and dragging our muskets after us, we softly approached the low brow of rock that overhung the water, and in the face of which there yawned a cavern, having a mouth like some low rustic arch, against the piers of which the water chafed in tiny riplets; but the recesses of which probably pierced the profundity of the Stubbenkamer.
A sound like the croak of a crow announced to us, that our comrades were within pistol-shot on the opposite side; a McDonald replied by another sound like the whirr of a partridge, these being the signals agreed upon. Suddenly a wild and haggard figure came forth from the chasm. It was Bandolo—the assassin of Gabrielle!
My breath came thick and fast, and I heard the click of locks as my men cocked their muskets. We were within twenty feet of him, yet he saw us not. He leaned with his hands crossed and his chin resting on the muzzle of a long Spanish musket, which I thus supposed to be unloaded. He was pale and ghastly; for wounds, want, fatigue, and danger, had wrought their worst upon him. His coal-black hair hung in matted elf-locks around his neck, and over his eyes and ears; a thick beard bristled on his chin; his hollow and glistening eye gazed with a wild and unsettled expression, alternately on the sailing moon, and the deep still waters of the placid lake. He was almost nude, having nothing upon him but the tattered remains of a shirt and a pair of breeches. His brown and muscular arms and legs, from knee downwards, were bare; his breast was also bare, save where crossed by the belt of a cartridge pouch, and the fluttering rags of what had been a shirt. He was the very personification of a hunted wild beast—of a devil cast out from the society of devils—or of what he was, a wretch against whom all men had lifted up their hands, and whose hands were uplifted against all men.
One of my soldiers blew his match, and the red glow caught Bandolo's haggard eye. He uttered a growl, snatched his musket, and, rushing on one side, was confronted by the towering figure of Phadrig Mhor, with his Lochaber axe upraised, and the barrels of two muskets levelled right at his head.
Gnashing his teeth with rage and astonishment, he uttered a bitter curse, and turned to the other side, between the lake and rocks, but was there met by the brass orb of my target, my uplifted claymore, and two musket-barrels also levelled straight at his head. Uttering a howl of wrath and fury, he made a motion as if to leap into the lake, and then, changing his intention, rushed into the cavern; and now we were somewhat puzzled, for we knew not the depth or the windings of the place, from the recesses of which he might easily shoot us all down by his deadly aim if we entered; for the reflection of the moon from the lake would enable him to fire with terrible precision while we could not give him back a shot in return.
There was a pause. Eachin M'Donuil stooped down and fired into the cavern at random; at the same moment a ball from Bandolo grazed his head, and the double report reverberated among the woods and in the far recesses of the granite rocks in which the fissure yawned.
"Dia! this will never do," said the islesman, as he drew back to reload; "it is always darkest under a lamp. We may be within arm's length of this fellow, and yet not see him."