As I stepped it out there was a rush at me from the grass, behind and to my left. Down I dropped full length, and a man shot over me and sprawled in the road, but he was quick and lithe as a cat, and was up before me, for my slung arm disadvantaged me. I could just see his sword poised for a cut as he fairly pounced on me. I dived outward as he jumped, and he missed me, but before I could get behind him he was round and at me again like a fury. I was weaponless and crippled, but if I could once get past his sword, it would be all over with him. The pace was so hot, and my mind was so bent on the work, that I did not call for aid. At last I tricked him, for in jumping aside I flung my hat hard in his face, and in a flash had my right hand at his throat. He jabbed at me with his left, and I twisted round to his right side, pressing his sword-arm against his body, and digging my fingers into his windpipe. I heard his sword drop, and felt him feeling for a pistol. He was as hard as a nail, and I began to dream that he would get me before I had choked him. Donald ended the matter. He, doglike in his fidelity, came striding down the road after me. The moon outpaced the clouds again. He saw us at our death-grips, and came on with a rush and a yell. He drove his dirk into the nape of the man's neck and twisted the blade in its ghastly socket. A sharp, sickening click--and the man dropped out of my fingers like a stone. The moon went in again, and hid the evil thing from us. "Pe she hurtit?" asked Donald anxiously. "Not a scratch!" I replied. "Tat's goot! Carry 'er up to the fire," he added to three or four men who had run up on hearing his yell. "She's English and, maybe, she sall hae fine pickins on 'er." He stooped down, careless of a dead man as of a dead buck, and stropped his dirk clean and dry on the man's breeches. Then the men, equally indifferent, picked up the body and started off. "D'ye ken wha the chiel is?" asked Donald, as we walked after them. "A certain sergeant of dragoons, or one of his men," I answered. "He winna fash ye ony more," said he. "Tat's a fine way of mine, when I can get behint a mon. I've killt mony a stot like it, shoost t' keep in the way of it." And he stabbed the air, twisted his wrist, and clicked delightedly. The men dumped the body near the fire. One of them stooped down and was for putting his hand in the man's pocket, but drew it back as if he had thrust it by mischance into the flames. Then I knew. I have heard a mare squeal in a burning stable, but I have never heard agony in sound as I heard it there, on the top of Shap, when Donald flung himself across the dead body of his chief and foster-brother.