"Gentlemen," said the officer, on his entrance, "you perceive, I trust, that further resistance will be vain, and can only bring down destruction on your own heads."
"Not so fast, my good fellow—we perceive nothing of the kind," exclaimed Terence, forcibly releasing himself from the grip which Mr Cameron still held of him, and, in the next instant, preparing his rifle for another charge. "Just keep off a bit, and let us have fair play for our money. Shot about, my beautiful fellows. It's all I ask, and no gentleman can refuse so reasonable a request."
"Terence, Terence!" exclaimed Mr Cameron, again laying his hand on the right arm of his hot-headed friend, "listen to me, I beseech you, as a special favour. I request of you, I beg of you, to desist."
"Well, well, my dear fellow," replied Terence, somewhat doggedly, and at the same time resting the butt of his rifle on the floor, "do as you please, only it's a cursed pity you wouldn't allow a few shots to be exchanged between these gentlemen and me, if it were only for the respectability of your own house."
"Don't you know, sir," here interposed the commanding officer of the party, addressing Terence, "that by the laws of war I could——"
"Och, no more of that blarney, if you please, my dear fellow," interrupted Terence, impatiently. "Mr Cameron has told me all about that already."
"If he has, then, sir," said the officer, haughtily, "you know the extent of the obligation you lie under to my clemency."
Terence was about to reply to this insinuation, and probably in no very measured terms, when he was stopped short by Mr Cameron, who dreaded that some immediate act of violence would result from the continuance of this irritating conversation.
"Mr Cameron," said the officer, now proceeding to the real purpose of his visit, "my business here is to make this gentleman"—and he bowed slightly to M'Gregor—"my prisoner, although this is not precisely the spot in which I expected to find him. I feel it to be a painful duty, sir," he said, now directly addressing Malcolm; "but it is unavoidable."
"I am aware of it, sir," replied the latter, "and am obliged by the consideration which induces you to say it is unpleasant to you. I have no doubt it is. I am ready to attend you, sir."