Ronald laughed aloud at the Spaniard's ideas of religious gratitude, and aroused his servant, who started up with agility, grasping his musquet, all alive in an instant to the recollection of their situation.
"Gracious me, sir! I daur say I have slept. On sic an occasion as this to tempt Providence wi'—"
"Never mind, Evan, my honest man; all is right now."
"But the reiving loons—"
"Have abandoned their post and fled. We have nothing to do now but to march off, and make the best of our way to some safe place. Had we accepted the offer of the honest muleteer, we should have escaped a most disagreeable night; but as the play says, 'All is well that ends well.'"
"But dinna be ower rash, sir," said Evan cautiously, as he looked through the screen of vines, and surveyed the ground with a sharp glance. "Be weel assured that the caterans are gane for gude and a'," he added, grasping his master's belt as he was about to descend.
"Gone? I tell you they are so undoubtedly," replied Ronald, testily. "You see there is no trace of them now, and we had better depart from our uncomfortable billet without further delay."
"I beg your pardon, sir; but just bide a wee—bide a wee. What ca' ye that?"
While he spoke the head of a man rose slowly above one of the masses of granite overhanging the forest river, evidently watching their place of concealment. The instant it appeared, Evan levelled and fired his musquet, and the black scowling visage of Narvaez Cifuentes withdrew immediately.
"The scoundrels are only in ambush," said Ronald, in a fierce tone of disappointment. "They are watching us still!"