She was still straining her eyes after the ghastly bundle they were leaving behind them.
“It is a woman!” she cried.
“Yes,” he answered, “we got her yesterday from Jock Campbell’s house—we burnt a house of his two days ago—you could see the flames from here.” His eyes sparkled with pride. “They were three to one,” he added, “but the Campbells always fight like Lowlanders.”
She put her hand to a face grown ghastly white.
“You keep your eagles well fed,” she said. “I would not be a Campbell in your hands, Macdonald of Glencoe!”
He looked up, puzzled at her tone; he had not properly seen her face nor could he see it now for the collar and the hat; it occurred to him that she did not understand the bitterness of this hate.
“There is the sword and the flame between us two,” he said. “A Campbell has not broken bread with a Macdonald for a thousand years—we are the older race and by craft they have the mastery.”
“Of the whole Highlands, I do think,” she put in.
“Yes,” he cried fiercely. “But not Glencoe—we have that yet, and we harry them and goad them to curses and slay them, and thwart them though we are but two hundred—now my tacksman return home with the plunder of Jock o’ Breadalbane’s house—we left his door-step wet with blood, not for the first time!”
She caught her breath.