The other man shot at me with his fusil, but missed.  He then drew his sword; but he was no match for me, and soon I left him sprawling on the ground, dead or alive, I knew not which.

At the time of which I write I was thirty-five years of age, and since my fifteenth birthday my occupations had been arms and the ladies—­two arts requiring constant use if one would remain expert in their practice.

I escaped, and ran along the wall to a deep breach which had been left unrepaired.  Over the sharp rocks I clambered, and at the risk of breaking my neck I jumped off the wall into the moat, which was almost dry.  Dawn was breaking when I found a place to ascend from the moat, and I hastened to the fields and forests, where all day and all night long I wandered without food or drink.  Two hours before sunrise next morning I reached Craig’s Ferry.  The horse sent by Douglas awaited me, but the ferry-master had been prohibited from carrying passengers across the firth, and I could not take the horse in a small boat.  In truth, I was in great alarm lest I should be unable to cross, but I walked up the Tay a short distance, and found a fisherman, who agreed to take me over in his frail craft.  Hardly had we started when another boat put out from shore in pursuit of us.  We made all sail, but our pursuers overtook us when we were within half a furlong of the south bank, and as there were four men in the other boat, all armed with fusils, I peaceably stepped into their craft and handed my sword to their captain.

I seated myself on one of the thwarts well forward in the boat.  By my side was a heavy iron boat-hook.  I had noticed that all the occupants of the boat, except the fisherman who sailed her, wore armor; and when I saw the boat-hook, a diabolical thought entered my mind and I immediately acted upon its suggestion.  Noiselessly I grasped the hook, and with its point pried loose a board in the bottom of the boat, first having removed my boots, cloak, and doublet.  When the board was loosened I pressed my heel against it with all the force I could muster, and through an opening six inches broad and four feet long came a flood of water that swamped the boat before one could utter twenty words.  I heard a cry from one of the men:  “The dog has scuttled the boat.  Shoot him!” At the same instant the blaze and noise of two fusils broke the still blackness of the night, but I was overboard and the powder and lead were wasted.  The next moment the boat sank in ten fathoms of water, and with it went the men in armor.  I hope the fisherman saved himself.  I have often wondered if even the law of self-preservation justified my act.  It is an awful thing to inflict death, but it is worse to endure it, and I feel sure that I am foolish to allow my conscience to trouble me for the sake of those who would have led me back to the scaffold.

I fear you will think that six dead men in less than as many pages make a record of bloodshed giving promise of terrible things to come, but I am glad I can reassure you on that point.  Although there may be some good fighting ahead of us, I believe the last man has been killed of whom I shall chronicle—­the last, that is, in fight or battle.