Rob now proposed to have his wounds looked to and the blood stanched; but there were no surgeons near, and the Spaniard shook his head sadly, as if to indicate that their efforts were useless, and his eyes dilated wildly when Greumoch approached him with a bunch of wild nettles, the old Highland panacea for all manner of cuts, stabs, and slashes. Then the Spanish cavalier smiled sadly, for he knew that he was mortally wounded, and felt death in his heart. "What is your name--your rank?" asked Rob, kindly. "I am Don José de Santarem, a Knight of Malta." "A relation of the Spanish colonel?" "I am his brother; but Alonzo has left me to my fate." "Upbraid him not," said Rob; "he has been sorely pressed by the men of Culcairn and Morar Chattu, and is far down the glen by this time." Had Rob said that he was "sorely pressed by the Medes and Persians," it would have been quite as intelligible to the Spaniard, who said,--"Senor Escosse, could you get me a priest?" "A priest!" reiterated Rob, with perplexity. "That I may confess me before I die." MacGregor shook his head. "The priests are all banished or in their graves," said he; "the faith of our forefathers is proscribed here now--even as the Clan Alpine are proscribed by the Parliament and paper courts of the Lowlanders." "No priests?" sighed the Spaniard, with a start. "Not one," said Rob, on which Greumoch, who knew a little English, whispered,-- "Maybe Paul Crubach might do--he was mighty near being a priest once." "No--no," said Rob. "Yet there is the parish minister of Glensheil." But the Spaniard shook his head with disdain, and the blood spirted anew from his wounds. "My forefathers lie buried in the chapel of our old castle at Quebara, in Alava--each under marble, with helmet, sword, and gloves of steel above his tomb; but I, a brother of St. John of Malta, must lie here among heretics, and, it may be, in earth that is unconsecrated otherwise than by the blessed dew of heaven!" "Nay," said Rob, earnestly; "this shall not be! You are dying, my brave man--I can see death in your face, for I have seen it in the faces of too many not to know it now; but I swear that you shall lie in consecrated earth." "Swear this to me!" gasped the Spaniard, writhing his body towards the speaker, whose hand he grasped convulsively. "I swear it!" said Rob, pressing his dirk to his lips. "You vow on your steel, as we do in my country," said the Spaniard, while his eyes sparkled with an unwonted light; "listen to me--I will reward you, if I can." "I seek no reward," said Rob Roy; "you are a Spaniard who came hither to fight for our king, and against those lumbering louts, the Dutch, who came from King William's country--bodachs, who know not a stag's horn from a steer's stump, as the saying is."