Bertram and his friends had advanced far enough to enable them to stand upright, and concealed from the view of Hatteraick, they listened to his conversation with the gipsy.
"Have you seen Glossin?" he said to her.
"No," replied Meg Merrilies; "you've missed your blow, ye blood- spiller! and ye have nothing to expect from the tempter."
"What am I to do, then?" said the smuggler, with a Dutch oath.
"Do?" answered the gipsy. "Die like a man, or be hanged like a dog. Didn't I tell ye, when ye took away the boy Harry Bertram, in spite of my prayers, that he would come back again in his twenty- first year? You'll never need to leave this."
"What makes you say that?" asked Hatteraick.
And Meg, who now threw some flax upon the fire, which rose in a bright flame, answered: "Because the hour and the man are both come."
At the appointed signal, Bertram and his companions rushed upon Hatteraick. The ruffian, who instantly saw he was betrayed, turned his first vengeance on Meg Merrilies, at whom he discharged a pistol.
She fell, with a piercing shriek, muttering, "I knew it would be this way."
A terrific struggle ensued between the smuggler and his assailants, in which Hatteraick contrived to discharge a second bullet at Bertram, which only missed its mark by a lucky accident. Strong, however, as the ruffian was, he was not equal to the joint efforts of the three men, and at length he was fairly mastered, disarmed, and tightly bound.