Very true, but Lerwick is better armed than any of us; this cave is full of gunpowder, and if the villain blows us all up, it will be no more than I expect: but if he did not escape from the castle to-night, and I do not think he was in the castle to-night, he certainly was not here last night at nine o'clock, for I myself came here for powder and shot, and there was not a soul in the place. But now we must be resolute and friendly; I shall descend myself, and appear to be wanting powder; at least I shall mention when I get down on the devil's chin" (such was the name of the projecting piece of rock), "to my men to hand me their powder-flasks, and horns, and I'll fill them in the dark, and Lerwick will not suspect me; and when I am fairly in, another of the lads will get down like a hawk and follow me on his stockings' soles, and a third will follow him in the same manner;

and then I will open this dark lantern, and we shall soon see whether this devil of a pedler be here or not."

A rope was slung round the captain's thigh, and he supported his body erect by one hand, holding in the other the lantern. He disentangled himself from. the rope, and desired the lads to drop him in a bag their flasks and powderhorns; but another lad descended in the same manner as Whiggans had done; Whiggans goes in and is followed by his man, and in an instant two more were on the devil's chin to assist them.

"Is it you, captain?" said a voice at the extreme end of the cave. "Yes, are you here, Lerwick ?" "O! captain, gif wad take me o'er to Ireland with

ye you."

Why, we are going on a different cruise to-morrow morning." And immediately the lantern showed the wretched Lerwick; but no sooner did he per

ceive himself in the presence of two men, than he asked, "Come ye as friends or foes?" "To take you, Lerwick," said the captain, and sprung on him. Lerwick crouched and sprung under his arms, and wheeled round as quick as lightning, and discharged a pistol at the captain, who dropped, and fell from losing his balance by the leap, and thereby escaped the ball; the lantern by Whiggans's fall was gone out, and now the captain's man flew upon Lerwick; but the wretch received the poor lad on the point of a cutlass, and what with the weight of his body from the spring he made, and the bottom with which Lerwick received him, the cutlass literally went through the body up to the hilt. The wretch not thinking there was any one in the way but Whiggans, and finding he could not disentangle the cutlass, (its blade was fast locked between the vertebræ and

the ribs,) sprung at Whiggans to snatch a pistol from his belt; but the report of the pistol, and the groan of the lad who had now expired, and the noise in the scuffle, raised not only alarm on the brow of the rock, but made those without on Satan's chin dart like serpents into the hole; and now Lerwick was overpowered, tied with a cord hands and feet like a sheep, and dragged to the cave's mouth: but now they had to unbind him to get him out; however there were three more on the rock, and the miscreant was tied hands to back, and feet together, as close as ropes could bind him, and brought to the rock; there was no danger of his falling over; another rope was round his body in an instant, and he was hauled up swinging by the middle, like a sack of corn in the shears of a brewer's crane. But though the groan of the wounded man was heard, it was not known that

any one was killed yet, for the place was darker than the coal is black, and the night was such that not a man could see his pistol at his arm's length only.

A young oak was cut in the wood, and the pedler was bound to it by the feet, the middle, and the shoulders; and the men, two at a time, carried him in great triumph to Rothsay, little suspect-" ing, poor fellows, that any man of their company had fallen by such a wretch's hand; but when the last reserve was called to take the poll, it was discovered there was a man missing, and two men were sent after him to the cave, whilst the others went to the town with their murderous load.

When they came to the skirts of the town, the captain plainly told Levingstone he would not go one step farther but on a certain condition. They' would leave Lerwick in baillie Ilan

VOL. II.

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