"Let us all rush in," said I; "he cannot knock us all on the head. Come, my boys! with a good cause and a day's pay one may face the devil!"
But they were too wary; and, brave as they were, drew back, saying—
"And if you are shot, Captain Rollo, who will tell the marshal why we left Stralsund?"
I was somewhat at a loss how to proceed, for to besiege Bandolo in the cavern and starve him out, would be a tedious and dangerous process; as we would have to starve ourselves in the first place, and run the risk of being killed or captured if any of the Imperialists paid the isle a visit from the Duke of Friedland's camp; but Phadrig and our four M'Donalds were well versed in all the tactics of mountain warfare, and prepared at once to smoke him out. While two kept guard with their muskets cocked, the others hewed down a quantity of decayed wood, and hurled over bundles of withered grass and the last year's leaves. In the midst of these I threw a flaming match, ignited by snapping a musket; the leaves, grass, and branches, shot up into a flame, and upon that flame we threw a vast number of branches freshly hewn from pine-trees. Phadrig continued to cleave down the resinous boughs and green saplings, and these, which were to smoulder, were mingled with drier branches to burn, thus the fire and smoke rapidly increased together. As they rose, they were caught by the arch of the fissure, into which they were rolled by a west wind that blew across the Black Lake.
The wooded amphitheatre, of which its placid waters seemed to form the arena, glowed in light; the leaves of the distant trees reddened in the gleam, and a long line of wavering fire streamed from the narrow rocks across the bosom of the lake, whose woods and waters were all unchanged, as when the priests of Hertha raised their flaming altars by its wild sequestered shore.
The M'Donalds continued this work in grim silence, which they interrupted only by a low and fierce remark in Gaëlic; for these four men were the sole survivors of the clan Donald of Eigg, nearly the whole of whom were smoked to death in a great cavern by M'Lean of that Ilk.*
* Their bones may still be seen, strewing the floor of this cavern in Eigg, one of the Western isles.
I now applied my sword to the work, and hewed away with right good-will, heaping branches of every kind upon the flame below us; the rocks soon became blackened, and the flame, as it licked their granite faces, scorched off the grass and flowers. The smoke rapidly became a dark volume, stifling even to ourselves, and now day began to dawn on the bare scalp of the Kœningstuhl.
For nearly an hour the fire had burned, and Phadrig was beginning to express fears that Bandolo was no longer in the cavern, but had escaped by some secret outlet; when, lo! I heard a wild and despairing cry, followed by the discharge of two muskets, and, escaping both, Bandolo darted out of his lurking-place, scattering the blazing brands with his bare feet; and with his eyes starting from their sockets, his face pale as fear, fury, and wrath could make it, his long black hair streaming on the wind, his long musket brandished aloft, butt uppermost, burst out through the smoke and flame, and with a thousand red sparks adhering to his hair and tattered garments, fled like a dun deer up the side of the wooded hill.
Unwearied by our long march from Oldevehr, and being refreshed by the halt at the cavern mouth, and the cool morning air, we sprang away in pursuit, dashing up the ascent like true mountaineers, or like the Luath and Bran of other times. Bandolo frequently paused and staggered round to fire a shot at whoever chanced to be foremost in pursuit; but whenever he halted, we either threw ourselves flat among the long rank grass, or darted behind the nearest tree, for the mossy trunks of the firs and ashes grew thickly on the sides of the Kœningstuhl.