e voice of
Gilchrist the gauger.

"In the King's name," he roared, and his men sprang forward.

And these were the words that I heard when Helen and Margaret flung
themselves from the horses and ran forward into the press of people.

There was the dropping of kegs and the straightening of folk at the
voice, but I saw the great figure of Dan cooried beside the boat. Then
came Gilchrist's voice again--

"Touch nothing--you scoundrels will touch nothing--I mak' seizure in
the King's name. Get roon' them, lads, with your pieces ready," and
the excisemen made a circle of the smugglers. The second small boat
was nearing the shore.

The lass McKinnon, with the bonny boyish face, stooped to pick up her
shawl, and Gilchrist was jumping and shouting. "A bonny catch," he
cried--"a bonny catch," and at that the boyish lass straightened
herself. "The boats ahoy," she cried, "ahoy, the boat; the gaugers are
on us."

"Stop the bitch," screamed Gilchrist, and sprang at the lass with his
fist raised.

"Back, ye damned kerrigan," and Bryde's voice was high like a
bugle-note, and he sprang forward.

"Dan McBride has the sailors on us," came a shout from Dol Beag, and
then Dan's great voice, laughing, "Fall on, lads; fall on. Into them
with the steel."

"Fire," screamed Gilchrist--"fire, or we're by wi' it," and the pieces
burst and spattered round us in a wild confusion. With the blaze of
the pieces I saw Dol Beag spring at Bryde as a wild cat springs;
crooked and bestial he was, and his knife flashing, but swifter than
the knife-flash was the love of the maid, who fell as Bryde fell. Into
the bedlam of smoke and noise and groaning men, came the horrible
laughter of a man, wild and high and devilish.

"McBride, Dan McBride, McBride, Dan McBride, look at the bonny bastard;
look at your bonny bastard." Dol Beag was crawling and writhing on the
beach like a beast, and then suddenly the breath left him. At that
terrible sound, scream and scream of laughing, the excisemen drew back,
and the sailors stood fidgeting and looking half afeared, and there
came the sharp crack of a signal gun from the _Gull_ and the rattling
cr-a-ik, cr-a-ik of halyards.

"Back on the boats," cried Ronald McKinnon, for well he kent McNeilage
would make sail for only one thing, and that was the Government ship;
and the sailors drew off quickly with their wounded. The excisemen
stood reloading the flintlocks, and Gilchrist, in a flutter of fea