We approached within about twenty yards of the spot where the advanced guard had seen some appearance of an enemy. It was one of those promontories which run into the lake, and round the base of which the road had hitherto winded in the manner I have described. In the present case, however, the path, instead of keeping the water's edge, sealed the promontory by one or two rapid zigzags, carried in a broken track along the precipitous face of a slaty grey rock, which would otherwise have been absolutely inaccessible. On the top of this rock, only to be approached by a road so broken, so narrow, and so precarious, the corporal declared he had seen the bonnets and long-barrelled guns of several mountaineers, apparently couched among the long heath and brushwood which crested the eminence. Captain Thornton ordered him to move forward with three files, to dislodge the supposed ambuscade, while, at a more slow but steady pace, he advanced to his support with the rest of his party. The attack which he meditated was prevented by the unexpected apparition of a female upon the summit of the rock. "Stand!" she said, with a commanding tone, "and tell me what ye seek in MacGregor's country?" I have seldom seen a finer or more commanding form than this woman. She might be between the term of forty and fifty years, and had a countenance which must once have been of a masculine cast of beauty; though now, imprinted with deep lines by exposure to rough weather, and perhaps by the wasting influence of grief and passion, its features were only strong, harsh, and expressive. She wore her plaid, not drawn around her head and shoulders, as is the fashion of the women in Scotland, but disposed around her body as the Highland soldiers wear theirs. She had a man's bonnet, with a feather in it, an unsheathed sword in her hand, and a pair of pistols at her girdle. "It's Helen Campbell, Rob's wife," said the Bailie, in a whisper of considerable alarm; "and there will be broken heads amang us or it's lang." "What seek ye here?" she asked again of Captain Thornton, who had himself advanced to reconnoitre. "We seek the outlaw, Rob Roy MacGregor Campbell," answered the officer, "and make no war on women; therefore offer no vain opposition to the king's troops, and assure yourself of civil treatment." "Ay," retorted the Amazon, "I am no stranger to your tender mercies. Ye have left me neither name nor fame--my mother's bones will shrink aside in their grave when mine are laid beside them--Ye have left me neither house nor hold, blanket nor bedding, cattle to feed us, or flocks to clothe us--Ye have taken from us all--all!--The very name of our ancestors have ye taken away, and now ye come for our lives." "I seek no man's life," replied the Captain; "I only execute my orders. If you are alone, good woman, you have nought to fear--if there are any with you so rash as to offer useless resistance, their own blood be on their own heads. Move forward, sergeant."