For a while Rob struggled on, stumbling and gasping, until at last his foot caught in a tuft of heather, and he fell heavily to the ground. Without a word or pause, Muckle John, who was leading by some ten feet, turned swiftly, and picking him up, continued his wild race for the broken rocks that lay before them. Two hundred yards behind came the foremost Highlanders, leaping over the ground in bounds, their claymores ready in their hands. A minute, and Muckle John had passed among the rocks, then doubling right and left, he sped towards a monstrous boulder, and scrambling up, pulled Rob on top. Now on the back of this boulder lay another great stone poised upon it, and carrying Rob over his shoulder, he clambered up and so to a cleft in the side of the precipice which fronted the hill. Rob had been too blinded by exhaustion to notice that before them lay what was apparently a cul-de-sac with bare crag on every side, and had he done so he would have realized why the Highlanders had bared their swords. For they were to all appearances in a death-trap. But Muckle John, wiping his brow with the sleeve of his coat, seemed well enough content, and placing Rob upon the barren cleft, he turned about and looked down upon the scene below. His assailants were gathered about the rock on which he had first sprung, and were debating what course to take. Far behind came the main body, and still farther away, Ephraim Macaulay. "Rob," said Muckle John, "have you your wind yet?" The boy groaned in reply, but struggled to his feet. "Now," said Muckle John, "I am not the daft fool ye no doubt take me for--there is a way up this cliff only known to me and one other. You see this cleft? It runs for fifty yards in a slanting direction, and there's little enough foothold. There is a break at the corner there and a bit jump of maybe two feet, but no easy, with just a bare rock and six inches to land on. But dinna waver or lose heart, for there's no return and it's certain death to bide here. After that, climb straight up, but leaning to the left, and when ye reach a small tree-stump wait for me, for then it becomes no easy matter." For a moment Rob hesitated, but Muckle John pushed him gently on the shoulder. "It's death here," said he again, "for they can go back and reach the top in two hours." Then in a leisurely manner he drew his claymore to hold the rock against assault. Knowing that if he hesitated he was lost, Rob set foot upon the narrow path that ran along the smooth edge of rock, and never looking down for fear of turning giddy, he wormed his way upwards, feeling every foot of the slippery surface. A sudden silence fell upon the onlookers below, and then a harsh noise of voices reached him, and a moment later a stone crashed on the rock within a foot of his head. "Haud tight, Rob," shouted Muckle John; "dinna mind them!" and whipping out his pistol he fired, shattering the arm of another man who was poised for his aim.