And his ruffian had escaped me but a few hours before, though I had determined to have shot him like a wild beast, if there was not time for hanging him. In imagination, I often had him within my grasp as closely as once upon a time he was; and now I had seen him, conversed with him, and been again baffled by his confidence and matchless cunning! When I thought of that, and the sixteen brave men we had lost, I clenched my hands and ground my teeth with grief and anger. "Gentlemen and soldiers!" I exclaimed, unsheathing my sword; "like true Highlandmen, swear with me to avenge the deed of this night. By wayside or hillside, by field or by forest, in hall or in homestead, swear that, if you cannot give him up to graver justice, you will slay this man Bandolo without mercy, even as the king has commanded; for, had he a thousand lives, his crimes require them all." The whole company unsheathed their claymores, took one step forward, and, raising their eyes to heaven with their blades raised aloft, exclaimed in Gaëlic, and with an energy excited by the hot smart of many a scorch and scar-- "By M'Farquhar's soul, and by our fathers' graves, we swear it!" Then in the Highland fashion, when swearing thus upon the _Holy Iron_, they kissed the bare blades, and, thrusting the points into the turf at their feet, stood for a moment in solemn silence. "Now, my brave hearts," said I, "fall into your ranks--take off your hammerstalls and prepare for service! Hark, I hear the clink of hoofs!" "And the drone of the Piob Mhor," added Phadrig, pricking up his ears; "hark you, my captain--if that is not _Beallach na Broige_, call me a Lowland bodach." And as he spoke, the morning wind--for it was then about the hour of three--brought towards us distinctly the notes of the bagpipe. CHAPTER XXXVII. THE PRISONERS OF THE PISTOLIERS. The horsemen came up rapidly. We challenged, and they proved to be the baron's troop of pistoliers retiring from the front with a dozen of prisoners, whom they had taken somewhat by mistake, when falling suddenly among the cantonments of the enemy, having been misled, as their leader informed us, by the statements of a Schönburg cattle-dealer as to the locality of Tilly's outposts. So dense was the smoke which had rolled from the burned wood across the country, that we could scarcely discern each other, and the baron's inquiries about the conflagration which had so greatly alarmed him were soon satisfied; and now, like a true man of the sword, perceiving that among the prisoners there were two ladies on horseback, I approached to discover whether they were young or old, pretty or plain, and prepared to sympathize with them. Both were clad in dark riding habits, and broad hats with gracefully drooping feathers; and both wore masks of black velvet.