Still happy chance had sent panic in advance of him, and he wisely followed it with all possible speed. [Sidenote: Sept. 19/30.] [Sidenote: Sept. 20/October 1.] Cope, meanwhile, on hearing of the march of the rebels southward had moved from Inverness to Aberdeen, where, on the arrival of transports from Edinburgh, he embarked his men and arrived safely on the 16th of September at Dunbar. On the two following days the troops were disembarked, and the army, being reinforced by two hundred Highland levies under Lord Loudoun, and by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dragoons, was raised to a total of twenty-three hundred men, with six guns. On the 19th Cope marched northward along the coast road, and on the following day caught sight of the rebels, not, as he had expected, to westward, but to southward of him, quietly halted on the brow of Carberry Hill. He at once took up a strong position, with his rear resting on the sea, his left being covered by a marsh and his right by two enclosures with walls seven feet high, between which ran the road to the village of Prestonpans. In his front lay another enclosure surrounded by a ditch from ten to twelve feet broad; and thus naturally entrenched, Cope's force might well have seemed unassailable. The rebels, however, moved down from the hill and took up their position opposite to the marsh on Cope's right. Cope therefore changed front to the left so as to rest his right on the ditch and his left on the sea, thus presenting his front to the marsh, an alteration which appeared to offer the rebels little advantage. In the course of the evening, however, a man well acquainted with the marsh pointed out to the rebel commanders a passage by which it might safely be traversed; and in the course of the night Charles threw his army safely across and formed it for attack in two lines--twelve hundred men in the first, and the remainder, who were but ill-armed, in the second line. His new position was not more than two hundred yards from the English camp, for Cope, deeming the marsh impassable, had omitted to post a single guard or sentry on that side. [Sidenote: Sept. 21/October 2.]