Striding up to the sergeant, I said carelessly,
"Your turn this time, sergeant. To-day to thee, to-morrow to me--it's
neater in the Latin but you wouldn't understand it--and all Brocton's
dragoons shan't save your ugly neck."
"Where the hell's your coat?" he demand fiercely.
A cool question, indeed, after trying to suffocate me, but it was never
answered. The air was on a sudden filled with the weirdest row I had ever
heard. It was as if all the ghosts in Hades had suddenly piped up at their
shrillest and ghostliest. This was followed by a splutter of musketry, and
this again by loud yells. Looking round I saw a swarm of strange figures
sweep into the yard, half women as to their dress, for they wore little
petticoats that barely reached their knees, but matchless fighting men as
to their behaviour. On they came, with the pace of hounds, the courage of
bucks, and the force of the tide.
It was the Highlanders.
The sergeant fled into and through the inn and, with the men from the
corridor, got clean away. Not a man else escaped. Half the dragoons on the
wagon were picked off like crows on a branch.
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