Dol Beag was on him before his words were out.
"The hell take you," he girned through clenched teeth, and his knife left his hip. "Ye'll lick where that lay, McKelvie, ye—ye—maker of meats for sailors," and the sweat rolled off his brow, and his voice was a skirl of rage.
McKelvie grabbed a horse-pistol from among his kegs.
"Ye hound, I'll put a hole in ye that will be hurrying the gaugers tae fill wi' siller," and as quick as light he levelled the pistol and drew the trigger. The room was filled with brimstone smoke that gripped the back of the throat, but Dol Beag was unhurt, and creeping like a powerful beast on his enemy. (The heavy bullet had smashed through the eight-day clock.) McKelvie was retreating warily to his barrels again, and I wondered if he had another pistol, when Dan laid his hand on Dol Beag.
"Stop a minute," said he; "there's some talk due to me before ye kill
McKelvie."
"Ay, ay, wan at a time, McBride; I'll be feenishing the stickin' o' this pig before I will start on you, and you can be countin' your bastards again," and with that he whipped round on Dan like an eel with his dirk hand high. But a spring took Dan clear, and before Dol Beag could follow, Dan had him in the air spitting like a cat.
"Ashes to ashes," says he, "dhust to dhust," says he, in a thick blind rage, and hurled Dol smash between the stone jambs to the back of the fire.
I saw Dol Rob Beag's neck take the corner of the jamb, and heard the wrench, and then the singeing smell started, and I pulled him out from the fire and the Skye man flung a stoup of water on him.
"Give him the whisky quick," cried swart Robin McKelvie; "put it down his throat," but Dol Beag lay still.
A young man at the door—the same exciseman, Gilchrist, that trotted at Mirren Stuart's coat-tails—cried in a thin voice, "Christ, he's deid; ye'll swing for this, Dan McBride," and disappeared in the night. With that the sailors made for the door, driven by that fear of the law with the long arm and the ruthless grasp; but Dan stood for a while looking on his handiwork in dour silence.