At this moment their fore-goer cried back to them, from the knoll whence he had gone to scout, that there appeared another band of armed countrymen on the top of the hill to their front. They were, indeed, but some merchant travellers who, seeing the military stopping the way, stood modestly aside to let them pass. But they did us as much good as they had been a battalion of the Seven Thousand. At this the officer was even more afraid, though I think like a good soldier lad, more for his command than even for his own credit and life. "Stand!" he cried. "A parley! What would ye have?" So James of the Long Gun called out to him: "We would have our minister." For so they thought of ministers in those days. But I would have cried for certain others before him, being, as it were, a man prepared and ready to go. However, I tell it as James Harkness said it. "Ye shall have your minister," said the officer. "And the lass," cried I, striking in, for which James did not thank me. "And the lass," the officer repeated, moving a little at hearing a new voice. "And her father and the other prisoners," I added. The officer hung a little on his words. "Do you want them all? Must ye have them?" "Aye, all--or we will take the lives of every one of you!" "Then," said the officer, "my life is forfeit to the Council. Another shall surrender the prisoners and not I." And with that he pulled a pistol from his holster and snapped it at his own head. Nevertheless it went not off, the lock being out of order, belike, or the poor lad's hand unsteady. He was reaching down with his other hand to pull another pistol from the opposite holster, but ere he could draw it, the voice of the Covenanter, Anton Lennox, spoke, gravely and nobly, so as to be heard by all of us. "Young man, face not in your own blood an angry God! Leap not thus quick to hell! Abide--and I, Anton Lennox, vow that I will not see you wronged. I am but an old and a dying man. My wounds can hardly let me live. What is my life any more? It is even at your service. I will go with you to the Council!" And at the word he looked up to the dark heaven, the sunshine wafting after the shower caught his head, and lo! there was a kind of glory about it, as of one that sees mysteries unveiled. Then we cried out to him to come with us, but he denied. And Maisie, his daughter, fleeched and besought him, but he would not even for her tears. "Go thou, my lassie," he said, "for I am spent. When I set my sword to the hilt in the breast of Mardrochat, of a surety I also gat my dead stroke. Now I am no better than a dead man myself; and perhaps if I give my life for the life of this heathen man, the Lord will not see the blood of the slain on my hands."