Into the open room below he heard several men enter, and their conversation reached him in his hiding-place. There was little comfort in what they said. As far as he could judge the officer in charge was questioning the soldier who had fallen asleep under the chimney. "Seen no one I suppose?" He spoke with a Highland accent. "No, sir, and I've searched the place high and low." "Been up the chimney?" "Yes, sir." "Looked under that gravestone there?" "No, sir, it's not possible to move that." "Call two of the men, we'll soon see to that." There was a moment's silence and then a sound of heaving. "Can't budge it, sir." "Here let me have a hand." A sudden fear came to Rob that perhaps Muckle John had taken refuge there--but no, what four men could not move it was unlikely he could lift with his injured ankle. "Sergeant," said the officer, "march back to the cave where the engagement took place yesterday with twelve men, leave the other four with me, we'll spend the night here." "Here, sir--with that stone?" "It takes more than a dead Jacobite to frighten me," replied the officer, and a few minutes later Rob heard the tramp of feet die away again. It was darkening fast and he wondered what Muckle John was doing and where he was, whether if he was lying hid in the heather he would make a sign, or whether he must spend the whole frightful night cooped up like a fowl in a pen. He must have dozed a little when a curious noise made him start and listen with strained ears. It was a familiar enough sound--just the sharp crackling of firewood, but there was a horrible significance in it now, for a whiff of smoke curling up into his face set his eyes watering. They had lit a fire in the hearth below. The thin wisp of smoke grew into a column swirling unsteadily upwards. It became a solid volume choking and hot. With a sob of pain and despair Rob covered his face with his bonnet. For a few minutes that relieved his eyes and nose, but the danger of being suffocated was only subordinate to being roasted alive. It was a great roaring fire they were laying. He heard the loose sticks and dried heather falling in bundles on the blaze. His ears sang with the suffocation of it, his brain swirled and his breath came in short gasps as a fish gasps upon a bank. And then with a pitiful cry he fell forward, down upon the fire itself and with a swirl of smoke and sparks, into the midst of the soldiers. The officer thinking that the blackened, tattered figure might be the Prince himself hastened to stamp out the tongues of flame upon his clothes, and dragging him to his feet stared into his face. "Tuts," he said in a tone of deep disappointment. "It's only a boy." "It's the lad who escaped," cried a soldier peering at him; "the Duke offers fifty pounds for his arrest." "What lad?" asked the officer, eyeing Rob with some interest.