"A witch, and not your grandmother, wrought your nightcap!" cried the astonished trooper, when finding that his sword rung on MacGregor's head; and he had his hilt drawn back to deal the fallen man a deadly forward home thrust, when a ball from the long Spanish musket of the faithful henchman pierced his heart. He fell from his saddle lifeless and bleeding, and was dragged by his terrified horse (for one foot hung in a stirrup) down the steep bank towards the water, where steed and corpse disappeared together. MacAleister now assisted his foster-brother to rise, and escaping MacDougal and the rest of his troopers, they made a long detour, and reached their gloomy cavern unseen and in safety. CHAPTER XXIII. THE SNARE. A noble named the Duke of Athole, who was in close correspondence with the Government at Edinburgh, now conceived the hope of entrapping Rob Roy, and announced to the Secretary of State and other officials, that he had a sure plan for making him a prisoner. As this peer was one of the leading Jacobites of the time, and as all his sons were involved in the various armed Risings for the House of Stuart, it is extremely difficult to conceive why he should have leagued himself with the oppressors of the hapless MacGregor, unless he had been influenced by the Duke of Montrose, or was inspired by the strange animosity which so many cherished against the Clan Alpine. The duke contrived to send to Rob Roy a letter, by a messenger, who found him either in or near his miserable hiding-place. This missive contained a pressing invitation to see him immediately at the castle of Blair, and offered horses for his conveyance there. It was now the summer of 1717. Although Rob Roy had every reason to believe that Athole, from the similarity of their political views had no personal animosity to him, he would not fail to remember, that he had at one time leagued himself with the Whig faction, and had taken from the English ministry the sum of a thousand pounds for his signature to the treaty of Union, ten years ago, though he had _publicly_ opposed it in all its stages in Parliament. So MacGregor was too wary to trust himself in such slippery hands without some firm assurance of safety. He, therefore, wrote to the duke, delicately hinting the want of confidence he now felt in most men; the desperation of his circumstances, the condition of his homeless wife and children, and wishing to have his grace's commands in writing. In reply, the wily duke "gave him the most solemn promises of protection, adding, that he only wished to have some private conversation with him on certain political points. This was followed by an emissary, who gave even more positive assurances that no evil was intended, and then handed him a _protection from Government_. On seeing this our hero consented, and fixed a time for being at the duke's residence."