"Let the general send us a written promise." "Written?" reiterated the captain, haughtily. "By his own hand," continued the Highlander, emphatically; "for here in this land of strangers we know not whom to trust when our King has deceived us." "And to what must the general pledge himself?" "That our arms shall not be taken away, and that a free pardon be given to all." "Otherwise----" "We will rather be cut to pieces." "This is your decision?" "It is," replied Farquhar, sternly. "Be assured it is a rash one." "I weigh my words, Saxon, ere I speak them. No man among us will betray his comrade; we are all for one and one for all in the ranks of the Reicudan Dhu!" The captain reported the result of his mission to the general, who, being well aware that the Highlanders had been entrapped by the Government on one hand, and inflamed to revolt by Jacobite emissaries on the other, was humanely willing to temporize with them, and sent the captain to them once more. "Surrender yourselves prisoners," said Ball; "lay down your arms, and the general will use all his influence in your favour with the Lords Justices." "We know of no Lords Justices," they replied "We acknowledge no authority but the officers who speak our mother-tongue, and our native chiefs who share our blood. To be without arms, in our country, is in itself to be dishonoured." "Is this still the resolution of your comrades?" asked Captain Ball. "It is, on my honour as a gentleman and soldier," replied Farquhar. The English captain smiled at these words, for he knew not the men with whom he had to deal. "Hitherto, my comrade," said he, "I have been your friend, and the friend of the regiment, and am still anxious to do all I can to save you; but, if you continue in open revolt one hour longer, surrounded as you all are by the King's troops, not a man of you can survive the attack, and be assured that even I, for one, will give quarter to none! Consider well my words--you may survive banishment for a time, but from the grave there is no return." "The words of my dream!" exclaimed Farquhar, in an agitated tone of voice; "_Bithidh duil ri fear feachd, ach cha bhi duil ri fear lic_. God and Mary, how come they from the lips of this Saxon captain?" The excitement of the regiment was now so great that Captain Ball requested of Farquhar that two Highlanders should conduct him safely from the wood. Two duinewassals of the Clan Chattan, both corporals, named MacPherson, stepped forward, blew the priming from their pans, and accompanied him to the outposts of his own men--the Saxon _Seidar Dearg_, or Red English soldiers, as the Celts named them.