Mike crept round to the back of the house, and looked in at the window. He saw two English officers sitting by a fire, while a light burned on a table. Mike at once recognized in one of them the dreaded General Cromwell, whom he had seen at Drogheda. "What a fool I was," he muttered to himself, "to have come without my pistol. I would have shot him as he sits, and so wiped out Drogheda." At the moment the door opened, and a trooper in Scotch uniform entered. "I have brought this letter," he said, "from Alan Campbell." The general took the letter and opened it. "Campbell promises," he said to the other officer, "to open fire upon the detachment in the village with the guns of the castle as soon as we attack. One of the men who has brought this will remain here and guide our troops across the morass. He suggests that two hundred foot and as many horse should be here at eight to-morrow evening. All he stipulates for is that Colonel Furness, the Royalist who commands the enemy's detachment, shall be given over to him, he having, it seems, some enmity with Argyll. Furness? ah, that is the officer whom I sent to the Bermudas from Drogheda. We had advices of his having got away and captured a ship with other prisoners on board. A bold fellow, and a good officer, but all the more dangerous. Let Campbell do with him as he likes." The other officer drew out an inkhorn and wrote, at Cromwell's dictation, his adherence to the terms offered by Alan Campbell. Cromwell signed the paper, and handed it to the messenger. Then the English general and his escort mounted and rode off. Campbell's retainers sat for half an hour drinking together. Then they came to the door. One mounted, and saying to the other, "I would rather have twenty-four hours' sleep such as you have before you, than have to ride back to Kirkglen to-night; the mist is setting in thickly," rode off into the darkness.