There was no time to think; and I caught the Highlander by the leg, and had him down, and his armed hand pinned out, before I knew what I was doing.  His comrades sprang to rescue him, Andie and I were without weapons, the Gregara three to two.  It seemed we were beyond salvation, when Neil screamed in his own tongue, ordering the others back, and made his submission to myself in a manner the most abject, even giving me up his knife which (upon a repetition of his promises) I returned to him on the morrow.

Two things I saw plain:  the first, that I must not build too high on Andie, who had shrunk against the wall and stood there, as pale as death, till the affair was over; the second, the strength of my own position with the Highlanders, who must have received extraordinary charges to be tender of my safety.  But if I thought Andie came not very well out in courage, I had no fault to find with him upon the account of gratitude.  It was not so much that he troubled me with thanks, as that his whole mind and manner appeared changed; and as he preserved ever after a great timidity of our companions, he and I were yet more constantly together.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XVI

THE MISSING WITNESS

On the seventeenth, the day I was trysted with the Writer, I had much rebellion against fate.  The thought of him waiting in the King’s Arms, and of what he would think, and what he would say when next we met, tormented and oppressed me.  The truth was unbelievable, so much I had to grant, and it seemed cruel hard I should be posted as a liar and a coward, and have never consciously omitted what it was possible that I should do.  I repeated this form of words with a kind of bitter relish, and re-examined in that light the steps of my behaviour.  It seemed I had behaved to James Stewart as a brother might; all the past was a picture that I could be proud of, and there was only the present to consider.  I could not swim the sea, nor yet fly in the air, but there was always Andie.  I had done him a service, he liked me; I had a lever there to work on; if it were just for decency, I must try once more with Andie.

It was late afternoon; there was no sound in all the Bass but the lap and bubble of a very quiet sea; and my four companions were all crept apart, the three Macgregors higher on the rock, and Andie with his Bible to a sunny place among the ruins; there I found him in deep sleep, and, as soon as he was awake, appealed to him with some fervour of manner and a good show of argument.

“If I thoucht it was to do guid to ye, Shaws!” said he, staring at me over his spectacles.

“It’s to save another,” said I, “and to redeem my word.  What would be more good than that?  Do ye no mind the scripture, Andie?  And you with the Book upon your lap! What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world?"