All the time,too,he kept winding in and out in the lower parts of the moorland where we were the best concealed.Some of these had been burned or at least scathed with fire;and there rose in our faces (which were close to the ground)a blinding,choking dust as fine as smoke.The water was long out;and this posture of running on the hands and knees brings an overmastering weakness and weariness,so that the joints ache and the wrists faint under your weight.
Now and then,indeed,where was a big bush of heather,we lay awhile,and panted,and putting aside the leaves,looked back at the dragoons.They had not spied us,for they held straight on;a half-troop,I think,covering about two miles of ground,and beating it mighty thoroughly as they went.I had awakened just in time;a little later,and we must have fled in front of them,instead of escaping on one side.Even as it was,the least misfortune might betray us;and now and again,when a grouse rose out of the heather with a clap of wings,we lay as still as the dead and were afraid to breathe.
The aching and faintness of my body,the labouring of my heart,the soreness of my hands,and the smarting of my throat and eyes in the continual smoke of dust and ashes,had soon grown to be so unbearable that I would gladly have given up.Nothing but the fear of Alan lent me enough of a false kind of courage to continue.As for himself (and you are to bear in mind that he was cumbered with a great-coat)he had first turned crimson,but as time went on the redness began to be mingled with patches of white;his breath cried and whistled as it came;and his voice,when he whispered his observations in my ear during our halts,sounded like nothing human.Yet he seemed in no way dashed in spirits,nor did he at all abate in his activity,so that I was driven,to marvel at the man's endurance.
At length,in the first gloaming of the night,we heard a trumpet sound,and looking back from among the heather,saw the troop beginning to collect.A little after,they had built a fire and camped for the night,about the middle of the waste.
At this I begged and besought that we might lie down and sleep.
"There shall be no sleep the night!"said Alan."From now on,these weary dragoons of yours will keep the crown of the muirland,and none will get out of Appin but winged fowls.We got through in the nick of time,and shall we jeopard what we've gained?Na,na,when the day comes,it shall find you and me in a fast place on Ben Alder.""Alan,"I said,"it's not the want of will:it's the strength that I want.If I could,I would;but as sure as I'm alive Icannot."
"Very well,then,"said Alan."I'll carry ye."I looked to see if he were jesting;but no,the little man was in dead earnest;and the sight of so much resolution shamed me.
"Lead away!"said I."I'll follow."
He gave me one look as much as to say,"Well done,David!"and off he set again at his top speed.
It grew cooler and even a little darker (but not much)with the coming of the night.The sky was cloudless;it was still early in July,and pretty far north;in the darkest part of that night,you would have needed pretty good eyes to read,but for all that,I have often seen it darker in a winter mid-day.Heavy dew fell and drenched the moor like rain;and this refreshed me for a while.When we stopped to breathe,and I had time to see all about me,the clearness and sweetness of the night,the shapes of the hills like things asleep,and the fire dwindling away behind us,like a bright spot in the midst of the moor,anger would come upon me in a clap that I must still drag myself in agony and eat the dust like a worm.
By what I have read in books,I think few that have held a pen were ever really wearied,or they would write of it more strongly.I had no care of my life,neither past nor future,and I scarce remembered there was such a lad as David Balfour.I did not think of myself,but just of each fresh step which I was sure would be my last,with despair --and of Alan,who was the cause of it,with hatred.Alan was in the right trade as a soldier;this is the officer's part to make men continue to do things,they know not wherefore,and when,if the choice was offered,they would lie down where they were and be killed.And I dare say I would have made a good enough private;for in these last hours it never occurred to me that I had any choice but just to obey as long as I was able,and die obeying.