The fair truth is, I shut my eyes and prayed. When I opened them
again, the rogues were crept the least thing nearer without speech
or hurry. Every eye was upon mine, which struck me with a strange
sensation of their brightness, and of the fear with which they
continued to approach me. I held out my hands empty; whereupon one
asked, with a strong Highland brogue, if I surrendered.
"Under protest," said I, "if ye ken what that means, which I
misdoubt."
At that word, they came all in upon me like a flight of birds upon
a carrion, seized me, took my sword, and all the money from my
pockets, bound me hand and foot with some strong line, and cast me
on a tussock of bent. There they sat about their captive in a part
of a circle and gazed upon him silently like something dangerous,
perhaps a lion or a tiger on the spring. Presently this attention
was relaxed. They drew nearer together, fell to speech in the
Gaelic, and very cynically divided my property before my eyes. It
was my diversion in this time that I could watch from my place the
progress of my friend's escape.
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