At the next village they stopped, and as they found that there was no possibility of obtaining fresh horses, they determined to push forward on foot.  It was now four o’clock in the morning, and they had ridden over forty miles.  Another guide was obtained, and they set forward.  Although they had hurried to the utmost, it was ten o’clock in the morning before they came down upon a valley with a narrow stream which their guide told them fell into the sea, near Leuchars.  They were, he said, now within two miles of the castle, the track from which to the sea ran down the valley.  The wind was still blowing a gale, but the clouds had broken, and at times the sun streamed out brightly.

“Thank Heaven we are here at last,” Donald Leslie said, “for a harder night I have never spent.  I think we must be in time.”

“I think so,” William Long said.  “Supposing the Royalist made the bay safely, she would have been there by midnight, but the sea would have been so high that I doubt if they would have launched a boat till morning.  It was light by five, but they might wait for the gale to abate a little, and after landing they have eight miles to come.  Of course, they might have passed here an hour ago, but a incline to think that they would not land till later, as with this wind blowing off shore, it would be no easy matter to row a boat in its teeth.”

The guide saying that there was a cottage a mile further up the valley, he was sent there with instructions to ask whether any one had been seen to pass that morning.  After being half an hour absent he returned, saying that there was only an old woman at the hut, and that she had told him she was sure no one had passed there since daybreak.  They now followed the stream down the valley until they came to a small wood.  Here they lay down to rest, one being planed upon the lookout.  Two hours later the sentry awoke them with the news that a party of men were coming op the valley.  All were at once upon the alert.

“Thank Heaven,” Leslie said, “we have struck the right place.  There seem to be ten or twelve of them, of whom two, no doubt, are the prisoners.  We shall have no difficulty in overcoming them by a sudden surprise.  Capture or kill every man if possible, or we shall have hot work in getting back to Edinburgh.”

When the party came nearer it could be seen that it consisted of eight armed men, in the center of whom the two Royalist officers were walking.  Their arms were bound to their sides.  Leslie arranged that he with Mike and one of the soldiers would at once spring to their aid, as likely enough, directly the attack began, the captors might endeavor to slay their prisoners, to prevent them from being rescued.  Mike was instructed to strike no blow, but to devote himself at once to cutting their cords, and placing weapons in their hands.