officer, he stripped off the bloody coat, and quick

ly put it over his own.

He then seized his fowling piece, and dropped himself to the floor, and concealing his face as well as he could with his cap, he stalked forth from the door.

His conjectures as to the men's fears had not been groundless. They had followed their more hardy leaders no farther than to the outside of the hut, where, had he appeared undisguised, he would have been most certainly intercepted and seized by them. But, no sooner did they behold what they took to be the reanimated body of the murdered officer, walking in the stream of light that issued from the door, with the blood pouring as it were from the fatal wound in his breast, than the whole superstitious group, believing that the devil had taken possession of the corpse, uttered yells of terror, and ran off amongst those very bushes their fears had formerly hindered them from venturing to penetrate.

Amherst seeing the way clear before him, pressed forward, but, in the confusion of the moment, he took the direction up the glen, leading to the mountains. He had not gone three steps, when he heard the voice of the miller, who was

by this time returning with Macgillivray from a fruitless chase, and was within less than twenty yards.

"Damn it! there's a man rinnin' awa'!-this way, Maister Macgillivray !-after him!—this way!-up the water!”

Amherst urged forwards. The obscure moonlight fell partially among the trees; the shades of night being deepened to blackness in particular parts, by the thickness of the foliage above, so that, though the mere figure might occasionally be perceptible, it was more frequently lost altogether. Amherst flew, and as he did so, he heard the quick steps, and the shouts and execrations of his pursuers, at no great distance behind him. He rushed desperately onwards along the precipices, and in passing by a steep projecting bank, where the pendant bushes made it so dark that he could only guess at his way, his foot slipped through some decayed soil projecting from the edge of a rock overhanging the hollow bed of the brook, and he tumbled headlong through the boughs of the trees below, twenty or thirty feet, down to the very bottom.

Fortunately for Amherst, he dropped upon a

dry heap of pure soft sand, loosely laid up by some recent flood. This lucky circumstance, and that of his fall having been broken by the intervening twigs, saved him from being killed. As it was, he escaped with a few unimportant bruises. He lay, however, stupified for a moment, but was soon brought to his recollection, by hearing the loud curses and exclamations of his pursuers, who, ignorant of what had happened, still scrambled along in his supposed track, from which he had much reason to be thankful he had been so suddenly and safely removed.

He lay as still as death for a considerable time, until he heard their distant voices faintly repeated by the echoes far up the glen. He then recovered his legs, and stripping off his borrowed coat, he threw it away, and groped for his fowling-piece, that had fallen as softly as he had done, and was uninjured. With much circumspection he began to feel his way down the cavernous bed of the brook, creeping in the dark with as little noise as possible, under the projecting rocks, and banks, and bushes, and occasionally wading through the shallow water, support

ing his slippery steps with a broken bough he accidentally picked up.

Having advanced so far as to think himself beyond hearing of the banditti, he moved with more freedom, and, consequently, with greater expedition, until at length, much to his satisfaction, the shade became less profound, and he discovered that he was emerging upon the great road by which he had approached the house of Lochandhu, the night of his arrival there.

He sat down, for a little time, on a large stone by the side of the way, to recover his breath, and to offer up ejaculations for his almost miraculous deliverance from certain murder. What was now to be done, or how was he to proceed? Must he return to the house, after having such dreadful proofs that Lochandhu was the protector, if not the head, of a gang of robbers and murderers? Yet how was he to procure the means of immediate flight, without giving alarm to the wavering mind of Lochandhu? He could not leave his house that night so secretly that his departure would not be discovered by the gang, who, by short cuts known only to themselves, could easily intercept, waylay, and murder him.

Trusting, therefore, to that protection, which the conversation of the villains had led him to believe Lochandhu still felt disposed to afford him, he resolved to continue his guest for this night at least.

But after having thus determined on his more immediate line of conduct, he began to consider what his after plans should be. He remembered the keen desire expressed both by Alexander Macgillivray and the blood-thirsty miller, that they might prevail on Lochandhu to permit them to make away with him; and notwithstanding that he considered himself tolerably assured of present safety under the roof of his host, he felt convinced, that the atrocious villain Alexander, would continue to use every means that fraud or deceit might enable him to wield, to work upon their leader, to persuade him to abandon him; and he could hardly doubt, that they would eventually succeed, and that, perhaps, very soon. It therefore became prudent to terminate his visit at Lochandhu as speedily, and in as natural a manner as possible; but he could not very well decide how to do this without awakening suspicion.