The order was given to advance; and the troops speedily came to an outpost of the enemy, which was abandoned without a shot. But as they proceeded, the nature of the ground, encumbered as it was with trees, rendered the march of both lines uncertain and wavering, so that the columns soon began to interfere with each other; and great confusion ensued. Whilst endeavouring to extend themselves, the right column, composed of the Highlanders, and the Fifty-fifth Regiment, under the command of Lord Howe, fell in with a detachment of the enemy, which had got bewildered in the wood, just as they themselves had done. The British attacked them briskly, and a sharp contest followed. The enemy behaved gallantly; and the Highlanders especially distinguished themselves. Young Donald of Inverawe, his bosom bounding with excitement, from the shouts of those engaged in the skirmish, rushed into the thickest part of the irregular melee, and performed such feats of prowess with his maiden claymore, that they might have done honour to an old and well-tried soldier. Excited yet more by his success, he became rash and unguarded, and being too forward in the pursuit among the trees--which had already broken the troops on both sides into small handfulls--he found himself suddenly engaged with three enemies at once. As he was just about to be overpowered by their united pressure upon him, a ball from a rifle stretched one of them lifeless before him, and in an instant afterwards, the Eagle Eye, whose accurate aim had directed it to its deadly errand, was flourishing his tomahawk over the head of another of his foes. It fell upon him--the skull was split open--the man rolled down on the ground a ghastly corpse; and the third, that was left opposed to young Inverawe, began to give way in terror before him. Urging fiercely upon this last foe, however, the youth ran him through with one tremendous thrust, and he too dropped dead. Flushed with success, Donald Campbell was now about to continue the pursuit, after some fugitives of the enemy, who came rushing past him, when, turning to call on his red brother and preserver, the Eagle Eye, to follow him, he beheld him stooping over one of his dead foes, in the act of scalping him. At that very moment, he saw a French soldier approaching his Indian brother unperceived, with sword uplifted, and with the fell intent of hewing him down. Springing before the Eagle Eye, the young Inverawe prepared himself to receive the meditated stroke--warded it skilfully off,--and then following in on his foe with a thrust, he penetrated him right through the breast, with a wound that was instantaneously mortal. The Eagle Eye was now as sensible that he owed his life to young Donald, as Donald could have been that his had been preserved by the Indian warrior. They stood for a moment gazing at each other,--and then they embraced, with an affection, which the stern Eagle Eye had difficulty in veiling, and which young Inverawe could not conceal.