"Surrender, Finland!" said Fergusson haughtily.
"Have at thee, rebel!" cried his adversary, and by one blow struck his rapier to pieces. His sword was raised to cut down the now defenceless trooper, and end their rivalry for ever, but, animated by chivalric generosity, he spared him, and pressed further on the broken ranks of the enemy.
Carrying aloft the Dutch banner, Walter Fenton rode towards Dundee, who was applauding Sir Evan Cameron of Locheil, and urging his clan yet further to advance. Dundee (whose panting horse was in the act of stooping to drink of a mountain runnel), with his eyes of fire turned to the disordered masses of Mackay, was brandishing his sword towards them, when a random bullet pierced his buff coat above the corslet, and buried itself in his shoulder under the left arm.
The sword dropped from his hand; a deadly pallor overspread his beautiful features; he reeled in his saddle, and would have fallen, but Walter supported him, and held before his eyes the yellow standard of the Statholder.
"Now God be thanked, they fly!" said he, in a voice which showed how intense were the torments he endured; "you are a brave lad, Fenton--the dying hour of Claver'se is at hand, but he will not forget you. Meet me at the house of Urrard in an hour, if all goes well and I survive till then. Make my dutiful service to the noble Lord Dunbarton, and desire him to assume the command. Adieu;" and placing his hand on the orifice to staunch the blood, he rode over the field at a rapid trot.
In a mass of disorder, horse and foot, musqueteers, pikemen, and cavalry, the soldiers of Mackay were driven like a flock of frightened sheep down the narrow pass, while the fierce clansmen, swaying with both hands axe and claymore, "cut down," says an old author, many of Mackay's officers and soldiers, "through skull and neck to the very breast; others had their skulls cut off above their ears like nightcaps; some had their bodies and crossbelts cut through at one blow; pikes and swords were cut like willows, and whoever doubts this may consult the witnesses of the tragedy." Thanks to the skill of Dundee and the valour of the Highlanders, never was a more decisive victory won. Mackay lost his tents, baggage, artillery, provisions, and his standards; he had two thousand men slain and five hundred taken prisoners. Such was the battle of Killycrankie, or _Rinn Ruaradh_, as it is still named by the peasantry, who attribute the ultimately fatal effects of the victory to the circumstance of Dundee wearing _green_, a colour still esteemed ominous to his sirname. A rude obelisk of rough stone still marks the place where the death-shot struck him, and is pointed out by the mountaineers with respect and regret as the _Tombh Claverse_.
