“It is a patrol of the Lochaber men,” whispered the henchman, raising the piece to his shoulder to take aim; “I’ll warrant they have got hold of Angus and the rest. But I’ll make sure of that fellow at any rate.”
“Not for your life!” replied Macfarlane in the same tone, whilst he arrested his hand. “The whole forest would ring with the report, and all would be lost.”
Seizing a crossbow from one of his immediate attendants, he bent it, and fitted a quarrel-bolt to it, and, having pointed it at the object on the summit of the knoll, he challenged in such an under tone of voice as might not spread alarm to any great distance, whilst, at the same time, he was quite prepared to shoot with deadly certainty of aim the moment he saw the figure make the smallest effort to retreat.
“Ho, there!” cried the chief.
“Ho, there!” replied the figure, starting at the sound, and turning his head to look eagerly around him.
“Where grew your bow, and how is it drawn?” demanded Macfarlane, in the same tone.
“It grew in the isles of Loch Lomond, and it is drawn for Loch Sloy,” was the ready reply.
A long breath was inhaled and expired by the lungs of every anxious Macfarlane, as he recognised the well-known voice of Angus, the master herdsman.
“Advance, my trusty Angus,” said the chief; “the brake is full of friends.”
Angus had never left his post of watch until he was satisfied that the Lochaber men were in such a state of repose as to ensure to him time enough to return to meet his chief. He then planted some of his people to keep their eyes on the enemy, whilst he found his way back alone, to make Macfarlane fully aware of their position. The plunderers lay about a mile from the spot where the chief had halted. The great body of them, consisting of some thirty or more in number, had retired into the hunting-bothy, before the door of which a sentinel was posted, to give alarm in case of assault. To prevent the cattle from straying away, they had driven them together into a large open hollow, immediately in front of the knoll on which the bothy stood; and to take away all risk of their escape or abstraction, four men were stationed at equal distances from each other, so as to surround them. The poor animals were so jaded with their rapid journey, that they drew themselves around the shallow little lochan or pool in the bottom of the hollow, from which the bothy had its name, and having lain down there, they showed so much unwillingness to rise from their recumbent position, that the watchmen soon ceased to have any apprehension of their running away. The men rolled themselves up in their plaids, therefore, and each making a bed for himself among the long heather, they indulged in that sort of half slumber to which active-bodied and vacant-minded people must naturally yield the moment they are brought into an attitude of rest.