ernoon advanced the pursuing vessel, which seemed to be
sailing two knots to the other's one, came fully into view, and
everybody on board saw that it not only was not one of the five which
had set out from Leith, but that it bore a strange look which somehow
seemed to bode no good.

They were not long left in uncertainty. "Yon's one of they
buccaneers," growled the captain; "and if ye're going to fight him off
ye'd better be gettin' ready."

At once the ship was filled with alarm and confusion, women weeping,
children wailing, men threatening. The very name of buccaneer sent a
chill of terror to every heart, and if the blood-stained butchers of
the sea had ranged alongside at that moment, the _Bonnie Scotland_
would have proved an easy prey. But there was one man on board equal
to the emergency. William Paterson had been shamefully treated by his
associates, his advice flouted, his authority denied, his confidence
betrayed. Now he rose superior to them all. He alone was calm amid
the pitiful panic, and the first to respond to his call for concerted
action were Mr. Sutherland and Donalblane.

"We must resist to the death," were his earnest words, steadily spoken.
"There can be no question of surrender. The buccaneers do not know the
meaning of mercy."

CHAPTER VI.

A BRUSH WITH BUCCANEERS.

There was no lack of arms on board the _Bonnie Scotland_, but they were
curiously assorted, and by no means all of the best quality. Muskets
and pistols, claymores and short swords, battle-axes and
boarding-pikes, they were all hurriedly got out on deck, and each man
chose the weapon he thought he could handle to the best advantage.

Donalblane, whose Highland spirit rather rejoiced at the prospect of a
fight, snatched up a sword, which he hung at his belt in addition to
his own pair of pistols.

"Can we beat the buccaneers, do you think?" he asked, looking up
eagerly into the grave face of Mr. Sutherland, whose one thought was
for his wife and child.

Mr. Sutherland glanced over the confused crowd of agitated men, many of
whom were evidently in a state of unmanly terror, and there was an
undertone of contempt in his voice as he replied--

"We ought to, if we keep our heads. There are certainly enough of us."

Counting her crew the ship carried three hundred men, and if these
stood to their weapons they should prove a match for the enemy, whose
numbers would probably not exceed one hundred. But the utter