CHAPTER X

THE SIEGE OF THE ROUND-HOUSE

But now our time of truce was come to an end. Those on deck had
waited for my coming till they grew impatient; and scarce had
Alan spoken, when the captain showed face in the open door.

"Stand!" cried Alan, and pointed his sword at him. The captain
stood, indeed; but he neither winced nor drew back a foot.

"A naked sword?" says he. "This is a strange return for
hospitality."

"Do ye see me?" said Alan. "I am come of kings; I bear a king's
name. My badge is the oak. Do ye see my sword? It has slashed
the heads off mair Whigamores than you have toes upon your feet.
Call up your vermin to your back, sir, and fall on! The sooner
the clash begins, the sooner ye'll taste this steel throughout
your vitals."

The captain said nothing to Alan, but he looked over at me with
an ugly look. "David," said he, "I'll mind this;" and the sound
of his voice went through me with a jar.

Next moment he was gone.

"And now," said Alan, "let your hand keep your head, for the grip
is coming."

Alan drew a dirk, which he held in his left hand in case they
should run in under his sword. I, on my part, clambered up into
the berth with an armful of pistols and something of a heavy
heart, and set open the window where I was to watch. It was a
small part of the deck that I could overlook, but enough for our
purpose. The sea had gone down, and the wind was steady and kept
the sails quiet; so that there was a great stillness in the ship,
in which I made sure I heard the sound of muttering voices. A
little after, and there came a clash of steel upon the deck, by
which I knew they were dealing out the cutlasses and one had been
let fall; and after that, silence again.

I do not know if I was what you call afraid; but my heart beat
like a bird's, both quick and little; and there was a dimness
came before my eyes which I continually rubbed away, and which
continually returned. As for hope, I had none; but only a
darkness of despair and a sort of anger against all the world
that made me long to sell my life as dear as I was able. I tried
to pray, I remember, but that same hurry of my mind, like a man
running, would not suffer me to think upon the words; and my
chief wish was to have the thing begin and be done with it.

It came all of a sudden when it did, with a rush of feet and a
roar, and then a shout from Alan, and a sound of blows and some
one crying out as if hurt. I looked back over my shoulder, and
saw Mr. Shuan in the doorway, crossing blades with Alan.

"That's him that killed the boy!" I cried.

"Look to your window!" said Alan; and as I turned back to my
place, I saw him pass his sword through the mate's body.

It was none too soon for me to look to my own part; for my head
was scarce back at the window, before five men, carrying a spare
yard for a battering-ram, ran past me and took post to drive the
door in. I had never fired with a pistol in my life, and not
often with a gun; far less against a fellow-creature. But it was
now or never; and just as they swang the yard, I cried out: "Take
that!" and shot into their midst.

I must have hit one of them, for he sang out and gave back a
step, and the rest stopped as if a little disconcerted. Before
they had time to recover, I sent another ball over their heads;
and at my third shot (which went as wide as the second) the whole
party threw down the yard and ran for it.

Then I looked round again into the deck-house. The whole place
was full of the smoke of my own firing, just as my ears seemed to
be burst with the noise of the shots. But there was Alan,
standing as before; only now his sword was running blood to the
hilt, and himself so swelled with triumph and fallen into so fine
an attitude, that he looked to be invincible. Right before him
on the floor was Mr. Shuan, on his hands and knees; the blood was
pouring from his mouth, and he was sinking slowly lower, with a
terrible, white face; and just as I looked, some of those from
behind caught hold of him by the heels and dragged him bodily out
of the round-house. I believe he died as they were doing it.

"There's one of your Whigs for ye!" cried Alan; and then turning
to me, he asked if I had done much execution.

I told him I had winged one, and thought it was the captain.

"And I've settled two," says he. "No, there's not enough blood
let; they'll be back again. To your watch, David. This was but
a dram before meat."

I settled back to my place, re-charging the three pistols I had
fired, and keeping watch with both eye and ear.

Our enemies were disputing not far off upon the deck, and that so
loudly that I could hear a word or two above the washing of the
seas.

"It was Shuan bauchled[15] it," I heard one say.

[15]Bungled.


And another answered him with a "Wheesht, man! He's paid the
piper."

After that the voices fell again into the same muttering as
before. Only now, one person spoke most of the time, as though
laying down a plan, and first one and then another answered him
briefly, like men taking orders. By this, I made sure they were
coming on again, and told Alan.

"It's what we have to pray for," said he. "Unless we can give
them a good distaste of us, and done with it, there'll be nae
sleep for either you or me. But this time, mind, they'll be in
earnest."

By this, my pistols were ready, and there was nothing to do but
listen and wait. While the brush lasted, I had not the time to
think if I was frighted; but now, when all was still again, my
mind ran upon nothing else. The thought of the sharp swords and
the cold steel was strong in me; and presently, when I began to
hear stealthy steps and a brushing of men's clothes against the
round-house wall, and knew they were taking their places in the
dark, I could have found it in my mind to cry out aloud.

All this was upon Alan's side; and I had begun to think my share
of the fight was at an end, when I heard some one drop softly on
the roof above me.

Then there came a single call on the sea-pipe, and that was the
signal. A knot of them made one rush of it, cutlass in hand,
against the door; and at the same moment, the glass of the
skylight was dashed in a thousand pieces, and a man leaped
through and landed on the floor. Before he got his feet, I had
clapped a pistol to his back, and might have shot him, too; only
at the touch of him (and him alive) my whole flesh misgave me,
and I could no more pull the trigger than I could have flown.

He had dropped his cutlass as he jumped, and when he felt the
pistol, whipped straight round and laid hold of me, roaring out
an oath; and at that either my courage came again, or I grew so
much afraid as came to the same thing; for I gave a shriek and
shot him in the midst of the body. He gave the most horrible,
ugly groan and fell to the floor. The foot of a second fellow,
whose legs were dangling through the skylight, struck me at the
same time upon the head; and at that I snatched another pistol
and shot this one through the thigh, so that he slipped through
and tumbled in a lump on his companion's body. There was no talk
of missing, any more than there was time to aim; I clapped the
muzzle to the very place and fired.

I might have stood and stared at them for long, but I heard Alan
shout as if for help, and that brought me to my senses.

He had kept the door so long; but one of the seamen, while he was
engaged with others, had run in under his guard and caught him
about the body. Alan was dirking him with his left hand, but the
fellow clung like a leech. Another had broken in and had his
cutlass raised. The door was thronged with their faces. I
thought we were lost, and catching up my cutlass, fell on them in
flank.

But I had not time to be of help. The wrestler dropped at last;
and Alan, leaping back to get his distance, ran upon the others
like a bull, roaring as he went. They broke before him like
water, turning, and running, and falling one against another in
their haste. The sword in his hands flashed like quicksilver
into the huddle of our fleeing enemies; and at every flash there
came the scream of a man hurt. I was still thinking we were
lost, when lo! they were all gone, and Alan was driving them
along the deck as a sheep-dog chases sheep.

Yet he was no sooner out than he was back again, being as
cautious as he was brave; and meanwhile the seamen continued
running and crying out as if he was still behind them; and we
heard them tumble one upon another into the forecastle, and
clap-to the hatch upon the top.

The round-house was like a shambles; three were dead inside,
another lay in his death agony across the threshold; and there
were Alan and I victorious and unhurt.

He came up to me with open arms. "Come to my arms!" he cried,
and embraced and kissed me hard upon both cheek. "David," said
he, "I love you like a brother. And O, man," he cried in a kind
of ecstasy, "am I no a bonny fighter?"

Thereupon he turned to the four enemies, passed his sword clean
through each of them, and tumbled them out of doors one after the
other. As he did so, he kept humming and singing and whistling
to himself, like a man trying to recall an air; only what HE was
trying was to make one. All the while, the flush was in his
face, and his eyes were as bright as a five-year-old child's with
a new toy. And presently he sat down upon the table, sword in
hand; the air that he was making all the time began to run a
little clearer, and then clearer still; and then out he burst
with a great voice into a Gaelic song.

I have translated it here, not in verse (of which I have no
skill) but at least in the king's English.

He sang it often afterwards, and the thing became popular; so
that I have, heard it, and had it explained to me, many's the
time.


"This is the song of the sword of Alan;
The smith made it,
The fire set it;
Now it shines in the hand of Alan Breck.

"Their eyes were many and bright,
Swift were they to behold,
Many the hands they guided:
The sword was alone.

"The dun deer troop over the hill,
They are many, the hill is one;
The dun deer vanish,
The hill remains.

"Come to me from the hills of heather,
Come from the isles of the sea.
O far-beholding eagles,
Here is your meat."


Now this song which he made (both words and music) in the hour of
our victory, is something less than just to me, who stood beside
him in the tussle. Mr. Shuan and five more were either killed
outright or thoroughly disabled; but of these, two fell by my
hand, the two that came by the skylight. Four more were hurt,
and of that number, one (and he not the least important) got his
hurt from me. So that, altogether, I did my fair share both of
the killing and the wounding, and might have claimed a place in
Alan's verses. But poets have to think upon their rhymes; and in
good prose talk, Alan always did me more than justice.

In the meanwhile, I was innocent of any wrong being done me. For
not only I knew no word of the Gaelic; but what with the long
suspense of the waiting, and the scurry and strain of our two
spirts of fighting, and more than all, the horror I had of some
of my own share in it, the thing was no sooner over than I was
glad to stagger to a seat. There was that tightness on my chest
that I could hardly breathe; the thought of the two men I had
shot sat upon me like a nightmare; and all upon a sudden, and
before I had a guess of what was coming, I began to sob and cry
like any child.

Alan clapped my shoulder, and said I was a brave lad and wanted
nothing but a sleep.

"I'll take the first watch," said he. "Ye've done well by me,
David, first and last; and I wouldn't lose you for all Appin --
no, nor for Breadalbane."

So I made up my bed on the floor; and he took the first spell,
pistol in hand and sword on knee, three hours by the captain's
watch upon the wall. Then he roused me up, and I took my turn of
three hours; before the end of which it was broad day, and a very
quiet morning, with a smooth, rolling sea that tossed the ship
and made the blood run to and fro on the round-house floor, and a
heavy rain that drummed upon the roof. All my watch there was
nothing stirring; and by the banging of the helm, I knew they had
even no one at the tiller. Indeed (as I learned afterwards)
there were so many of them hurt or dead, and the rest in so ill a
temper, that Mr. Riach and the captain had to take turn and turn
like Alan and me, or the brig might have gone ashore and nobody
the wiser. It was a mercy the night had fallen so still, for the
wind had gone down as soon as the rain began. Even as it was, I
judged by the wailing of a great number of gulls that went crying
and fishing round the ship, that she must have drifted pretty
near the coast or one of the islands of the Hebrides; and at
last, looking out of the door of the round-house, I saw the great
stone hills of Skye on the right hand, and, a little more astern,
the strange isle of Rum.

****

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