"Even while he spoke, the form which had glided so far before him suddenly vanished, and he found himself at the mouth of a cavern, huge, black, and yawning, with the long and dark whins waving gloomily from the rocks around. A moment he recoiled at the sight of it, but summoning up his energies he entered boldly, calling aloud on his midnight companion in terms of threat and defiance, until the winding recesses of the cavern rang with the sound.
"It seemed to him that other noises mingled with the deep echoes of his voice. A tempest of wind tore through the cavern, hurling him violently to the earth. The trees of the forest without were shaken as if by a tempest; the Spey thundered louder over a neighbouring cascade, and the roar of its falling waters was mingled with the shrieks of the river kelpie. My father sprung up, and instinctively stood upon his guard, but an oppressive feeling of horror took possession of his mind; a cold perspiration bedewed his forehead; his lips were parched and his mouth clammy; he could hear his heart throbbing audibly, while he strained his eyes till they almost started from the sockets, as he endeavoured to pierce the gloom. At that moment he would have faced a whole brigade of red-coats to have been free from that terrible cavern, but he had gone too far to recede, and he gathered courage from despair.
"He heard the clank of steel, and the tread of heavy feet sounded as if afar off, in hollow and vaulted places. Something like the fold of a damp plaid or shroud was waved across his face, and the memory of the lham-dearg again rushed terribly and vividly upon his mind.
"Expectation and horror wound him to a pitch of madness: he held aloft his target, and even while his hair bristled under his bonnet, and the marrow of his bones seemed turning to ice, he defied the spirit to battle.
"'Bloody hand of Glenmore! spirit of darkness! spirit of hell! come forth? Here a true man, a Cameron, defies you!'
"While the words were falling from his lips the awful figure stood before him, arrayed as an ancient warrior of the hills, and a halo of lambent fire playing around his form rendered him terribly distinct amidst the surrounding darkness. My father's brain boiled and whirled while he looked upon him, and his heart grew sick and palsied with fear: he knew that he was in the presence of an infernal spirit. Notwithstanding his terror, he recognised the white-haired warrior from whose hand he had received the dirk, and whom he had followed with taunt and defiance through the wood; but a superhuman courage armed his heart and nerved his hand, and calling aloud on heaven and Saint Colm of lona to aid him, he rushed forward to the encounter. The face of the spectre was changed from what he had first seen it: it was distorted and terrible with rage, and his eyes glared like stars of fire. My father saw the blade of the lham-dearg descending like a flash of lightning, yet he shrunk not; he felt it ringing upon his target, but he sunk with the mighty force of the blow, and a whirlwind seemed again to rush through the cavern, and bear him along with it, dashing him senseless to the earth.
"When consciousness returned, the morning sun was shining gaily in the wide blue vault, the dewy pines of Rothiemurchus were glistening in the light, and afar off rose the huge sides of the blue Cairngorm. The eagle was boldly winging away from his eyrie among the shores of Loch-avon, and soaring aloft on the balmy air; the mountain Spey was rushing as usual through the corries and chasms of the pine-clad glen, from which the white mists and foam of its course were curling in the bright sun, above the dark fir trees of the vast Highland forest.
"My father rose; he stretched his stiffened limbs and looked cautiously around him, but neither spectre nor red soldier was in sight. Behind him yawned the arched mouth of the black cavern: he shuddered as he looked upon its gloomy depth, and turning away, plunged into the forest in hopes that some loyal tenant or forester of the laird of Grant would yield him somewhat to save him from perishing of want."
"Then, Dugald, this terrible encounter turns out to have been only a dream after all," said Stuart.
"Nothing more," remarked Fassifern.