"It was a temptin' o' Providence to attack sic a gang," observed Evan, who had begun to comprehend Spanish a little. "O'd, sir! gin we had but ten o' our ain braw fellows here, we would soon gar them ca' a halt."
"Yes; oh! had we but so many of the Gordon Highlanders here, I would soon give these vagabonds fight,—thirty of them though there be."
"Twenty-eight, senor; my hand has struck two from the muster-roll," said Pedro, ducking his head to avoid a shot which whistled past.
"There they are now. How it stings me to the heart's core to fly thus before such a despicable crew!"
As the moon shone forth again, their pursuers were distinctly seen behind, bounding over rocks and leaping through bushes, clearing every impediment with the activity of roes, while the wild yells, maledictions, and blasphemy with which they startled the far echoes of the lonely forest, imparted to the scene a singular and exciting, but certainly terrible effect. Some becoming weary, or missing the track, their numbers were now diminished to about a score, and shot upon shot they sent after the three fugitives, the glitter of whose polished appointments they could plainly discern in the moonlight.
"Fire on them! take a cool and deliberate aim, that every shot may take down its man!" cried Ronald, in a voice which had become hoarse with passion and fatigue; while, by way of example, he levelled the musquet of the dead robber over a fragment of rock, and let fly its contents at the nearest pursuer, who fell with a shriek that started the wild birds in the farthest recesses of the wood, and gave a temporary check to the ardour of the banditti, who still followed them closely but more warily,—firing at them from behind rocks and bushes, maintaining a running skirmish which, notwithstanding the danger, had something very exciting in it, and pleased Ronald's bold and fiery disposition better than the unresisting manner of their previous flight.
"Our Lady of Majorga, assist us!" cried Pedro in a voice of dismay. "We are lost now, senor: the fiends have brought up the dogs to their assistance."
"Pause not a second, but fire and reload; we have steel and lead for the dogs, as well as for their less noble masters. Excellent! that shot told well, Evan."
"Ay, sir, the fallow is kicking up his shoon like a red-rae. I see his legs in the moonlicht dangling ower the cairn o' stanes," replied the other, coolly trailing his piece, and ramming another charge hard home. "But o'd, sir, look at thae awfu' black tykes, louping ower scaur and bush, bank and brae like fairies, or sic-like awsome things. Sleuth-dugs, I declare! the born deevils!"
"Demonios! senors. I tell you we are lost," said Pedro, in a tone of anger and impatience. "You know not the unmatched ferocity of our Spanish mastiffs. They are yet far off; but should they reach us, all the rotten bones in the relicario of San Juan would not save us, if we had them here."