He reached it in safety, but by some means the horse grenadiers, patrols of whom were constantly abroad, succeeded in tracking him to its vicinity; thus, a day or two after the last affair, when he and MacAleister were issuing forth about dawn, in search of such food as the mountains afforded, they suddenly found themselves beset by a party, commanded by Captain MacDougal in person.
With a loud hurrah, the troopers, who were about thirty in number, put spur to their horses, and dashed in single file along the narrow footway on the eastern shore of Loch Lomond; but one, who outrode all the rest, speedily came up with Rob Roy.
"The thousand guineas are mine!" he shouted, and raising himself in his stirrups, he dealt so furious a blow with his long and ponderous cavalry sword at MacGregor, that he beat down his guard, and would inevitably have cleft him to the teeth by the next stroke, but for a circular iron plate which he wore within his bonnet. The blow, however, brought him to the ground, and as he fell he exclaimed—
"To your gun, MacAleister!—to your gun, if there is a shot in it!"
"A witch, and not your grandmother, wrought your nightcap!" cried the astonished trooper, when finding that his sword rung on MacGregor's head; and he had his hilt drawn back to deal the fallen man a deadly forward home thrust, when a ball from the long Spanish musket of the faithful henchman pierced his heart. He fell from his saddle lifeless and bleeding, and was dragged by his terrified horse (for one foot hung in a stirrup) down the steep bank towards the water, where steed and corpse disappeared together.
MacAleister now assisted his foster-brother to rise, and escaping MacDougal and the rest of his troopers, they made a long detour, and reached their gloomy cavern unseen and in safety.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE SNARE.
A noble named the Duke of Athole, who was in close correspondence with the Government at Edinburgh, now conceived the hope of entrapping Rob Roy, and announced to the Secretary of State and other officials, that he had a sure plan for making him a prisoner.
As this peer was one of the leading Jacobites of the time, and as all his sons were involved in the various armed Risings for the House of Stuart, it is extremely difficult to conceive why he should have leagued himself with the oppressors of the hapless MacGregor, unless he had been influenced by the Duke of Montrose, or was inspired by the strange animosity which so many cherished against the Clan Alpine.