These were the whole tactics of the Scottish Highlanders. Hence their clan battles, no matter how many swordsmen might be engaged, seldom lasted more than five minutes. It was usually an instantaneous charge--a rout--a killing, and all was over! Captain Dorrington rushed sword in hand upon Greumoch, who, by a single blow with his Lochaber axe, clove him literally through hat and wig to the teeth; then, by the hook of the same weapon, he dragged Captain Clifford from his saddle, and would have slain him had not Rob Roy strode across the fallen officer, and by receiving the blow on his own target, saved him. Several soldiers, who had burst out of the press, leaped behind rocks and stones, from whence they opened a desultory fire; but they were soon pursued, and cut down or pistolled. The whole detachment would have been destroyed in a few minutes, had not Rob Roy, towering over the throng, shouted in English, and with a voice that rose above the shrieks and shouts, the clash of weapons, and explosion of firearms, which woke a thousand echoes in the narrow pass, the overhanging rocks and mountains,-- "Surrender, yield--lay down your arms! on your lives lay them down, and I promise you all quarter,--I, the Red MacGregor!" On hearing this, his own men partly drew back, and many a claymore was withdrawn from a thrust, or lowered from a cut, and the firing instantly ceased. "You hear what I have said, Captain Clifford," exclaimed Rob Roy; "to resist now is to court death. I know you are too brave a soldier to deem rashness is valour." "Unfix your bayonets, my lads, and ground your arms. Grenadiers, extinguish your matches," cried Captain Clifford, sullenly. "Our time for sure vengeance shall come anon. But what manner of man are _you_, sir," he added, turning fiercely to Rob Roy, "who dare thus attack the king's troops on the open highway?" "The pass of Aberfoyle, which leads to the country of Clan Alpine, is _not_ an open highway, as you, captain, have found to your cost; and as for me, I am the man your king and laws have made me," replied MacGregor, sternly. "Sir, is not our king yours?" "Nay, sir. You serve the Elector of Hanover. Our king is far away in France, beyond the sea; but we are his true liege men, nevertheless. We have no time to spend in talking, captain. The night darkens fast, and the sooner your men with the wounded get out of the Highland bounds the better. Do not be cast down, my friends," said he, still speaking English to the prisoners, who were now huddled together in a crowd, and surrounded by the armed MacGregors; "you are not the first men who have come into the Highlands to shear, and have gone home closely shorn." "But your terms: our fate, Mr. Rob Roy Campbell?" began Clifford, in a blundering way. "'Sdeath and fury!" exclaimed Rob; "call me Campbell again, and I shall cleave you to the belt!" "Excuse me; but I do not understand all this," said the officer; "are you not named MacGregor Campbell?"