The gates of the Tower revolved, and then the craped and muffled drums of the Scots Fusilier Guards were heard beating a dead march before those who were "to return to Lochaber no more." Between two lines of Yeomen of the Guard, who faced inwards, the three prisoners came slowly forth, surrounded by an escort with fixed bayonets, each doomed man marching behind his coffin, which was borne on the shoulders of four soldiers. On approaching the parade, each politely raised his bonnet and bowed to the assembled multitude. "Courage, gentlemen," said Farquhar Shaw; "I see no gallows here. I thank God we shall not die a dog's death!" "'Tis well," replied MacPherson, "for honour is more precious than refined gold." The murmur of the multitude gradually subsided and died away, like a breeze that passes through a forest, leaving it silent and still, and then not a sound was heard but the baleful rolling of the muffled drums and the shrill but sweet cadence of the fifes. Then came the word, _Halt!_ breaking sharply the silence of the crowded arena, and the hollow sound of the three empty coffins, as they were laid on the ground, at the distance of thirty paces from the firing party. Now the elder brother patted the shoulder of the other, as he smiled and said--- "Courage--a little time and all will be over--our spirits shall be with those of our brave forefathers." "No coronach will be cried over us here, and no cairn will mark in other times where we sleep in the land of the stranger." "Brother," replied the other, in the same forcible language, "we can well spare alike the coronach and the cairn, when to our kinsmen we can bequeath the dear task of avenging us!" "If that bequest be valued, then we shall not die in vain." Once again they all raised their bonnets and uttered a pious invocation; for now the sun was up, and in the Highland fashion--a fashion old as the days of Baal--they greeted him. "Are you ready?" asked the provost-marshal. "All ready," replied Farquhar; "_moch-eirigh 'luain, a ni'n t-suain 'mhairt._"* * Early rising on Monday gives a sound sleep on Tuesday.--see MacIntosh's _Gaelic Proverbs_. This, to them, fatal 12th of July Was a _Monday_; so the proverb was solemnly applicable. Wan, pale, and careworn they looked, but their eyes were bright, their steps steady, their bearing erect and dignified. They felt themselves victims and martyrs, whose fate would find a terrible echo in the Scottish Highlands; and need I add, that echo _was heard_, when two years afterwards Prince Charles unfurled his standard in Glenfinnan? Thus inspired by pride of birth, of character, and of country--by inborn bravery and conscious innocence, at this awful crisis, they gazed around them without quailing, and exhibited a self-possession which excited the pity and admiration of all who beheld them. The clock struck the fatal hour at last! "It is my doom," exclaimed Farquhar; "the hour of my end hath followed me."