"I paused a moment to mutter a prayer, and look on the place where my father had perished. The lake lay at my feet, I have said; but I had no fear of the water spirit, for then the moon was bright. I had a good dram under my belt, and my claymore at my side. Suddenly, I perceived something moving across the frozen surface of the lake—three hundred feet below me; my dog uttered a howl, and crept close to my side. 'Blessed be Heaven!—am I blind!' I exclaimed, pressing a hand upon my eyes; 'am I blind, or dreaming?' A boat with three Highlanders in it passed before me—I knew they were Strathdee men by the cock of their bonnets—one steered, while two pulled the oars; and, like the shadow of a cloud, the boat and its rowers glided across the hard frozen surface of the Leven, slowly and noiselessly, until it disappeared under the dark shadow cast by the mountain side across the salt lake at its foot. A deathly chill came over me; my hair stood on end; for I knew that my father's spirit had passed before me.
"Since that hour, captain," said Phadrig, pressing his hand upon his brow; "I have never gone within twenty miles of Ben Nevis, nor would I for all the gold in the hill of Keir. I have gone round by the Braes of Rannoch, by the great desert and the Uisc Dhu, rather than pass the glen of the Leven. But how I crossed the mountains—how I came down the Devil's Staircase, and reached Glencoe (for I also was going on a mission from Ian Dhu to M'lan), the Lord alone knows; for of that dire April night—the night of St. Mark—I remember no more."
Phadrig had just finished this wild story when a blue light was burned low, almost under the counter of the fireship, as a warning to drop our anchors; and they were let go noiselessly, the rope-cables running through hauseholes deluged by buckets of grease, to prevent the sound alarming the enemy, whose batteries swept the boom and its vicinity.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FIRESHIP.
While our vessels hauled up their courses, and swung round with their heads to the wind, the fireship, favoured by the obscurity which concealed her, and by a north-east wind, with all her sails and studding-sails set, ran right towards the boom, which closed the narrow Strait; for the promontory on which the town stands closes in the extremity of the outer harbour, and divides it from the inner fiörd. The boom itself was an enormous log of Memel timber, to which a number of masts, yards, and spars were lashed. At each end strong cables secured it to the shore. Immediately within it lay a number of ships full of Imperial stores, and on board of these the crews must have kept but a sleepy watch that night, or the northern mist had blinded them.
The warlike Christian had seen the fireship, which was about a hundred and fifty tons of burden, constructed under his own eye; she was crammed to the hatches with combustibles, and fitted with grappling irons, to seize and destroy the boom and shipping. She was fitted up with troughs full of powder and melted pitch; these communicated with her fire-barrels and chambers for blowing open the ports, at which the flames were to be emitted. Her decks were sheeted over with powder, rosin, sulphur, tar, pitch, and grease. Her gunwale was surrounded by bavins of brushwood, having the bushends all laid outwards, forming a thick hedge, which was saturated in the same conglomeration of inflammable matter with which she was loaded from keel to hatches; and with which her whole rigging and masts, sails and running cordage, were thickly coated; while barrels of oil and tar, powder and other preparations, were piled upon her deck.
Through the dark gloom we discerned—or imagined we could discern—this floating magazine of destruction standing steadily on towards the boom, at a safe distance from which our ships had come to anchor. All the large boats were lowered, and noiselessly two thousand armed men, with the old blades of our own regiment leading the van, slowly and with well-muffled oars put off towards the shore.
Ian with my company—once his own—composed entirely of brave men of his own name and kindred, led the way. Red M'Alpine and Kildon followed in the next boat, with their companies; then came the remainder of our Highlanders in pinnaces; then the Danish musketeers of the King's regiment, and the French companies of the gallant Count de Montgomerie.
The boats grounded at a distance from the shore; there was a murmur of discontent among the French and Danes; but now, as at Fehmarn, our bold Scottish lads slung their muskets, sprang overboard, formed line in the water, and, grasping each others' hands, led the way towards the shore.