not call him that, for he was not uncivil to Maisie). For
he thought of the Council's word to him, for he well knew that it would
be kept, and that his life would stand for the prisoners'. So when he
saw twelve armed men rise from the steep side of the Nether Pot, and
more looking over the brow of the Crawstane Snout, he was shaken very
greatly in his nerves, being young and naturally much in fear of his
neck.

Then another officer, whom we afterwards knew as Sergeant Kelt (he has
wrongly been called Captain, but no matter), took up the word and bade
us to stand, for rebel loons.

But it was Long Gun that cried out to him:

"Stand yourself, Kelt. It is you that must do the standing, lest we send
you to your own place at the bottom of the ravine, and with a dozen shot
in you. Will you deliver your prisoners?"

"No, sir," cried Kelt, "that we will not, though we were to be damned!"

It was a soldier's answer, and I think none of us thought the worse of
him for the expression he had at the close.

For indeed it was a hard case for all of them.

At which, quick as the echo of his oath, there rose one from the heather
at our back and fired a musket at him. It was Black MacMichael.

"Damned ye shall be, and that quick! Tak' that," he cried, "an' learn
no' to swear!"

And he fired his pistol also at the soldier.

Sergeant Kelt threw up his arms, shot through the head. His horse also
fell from rock to rock, and among a great whammel of stones, reached the
bottom of the defile as soon as its master.

Then every man of the twelve of us had our pieces to our eyes, and each
had picked his quarry, when the young officer held up his hand and
desired a parley.

Indeed, the whole command was in great jeopardy, and so strung out like
onions on a cord, that no man could either fight well himself or yet
draw in to support his party. We had them completely at our mercy, there
in the Gut of the Enterkin.

At this moment their fore-goer cried back to them, from the knoll whence
he had gone to scout, that there appeared another band of armed
countrymen on the top of the hill to their front. They were, indeed, but
some merchant travellers who, seeing the military stopping the way,
stood modestly aside to let them pass. But they did us as much good as
they had been a battalion of the Seven Thousand.

At this the officer was even more afraid, though I think like a good
soldier lad, more for his command than even for his own cre