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viii Hoseason and his crew, learning that Alan had gold about him, conspired to rob and murder him; but David, being made privy to the plot, put Alan on his guard and promised to stand by him. Favoured by the shelter of the round-house, and by Alan's courage and skill of fence, the two got the better of their assailants in the attack which followed, killing or maiming more than half of them; whereby Captain Hoseason was disabled from prosecuting his voyage, and came to terms with Alan, agreeing to land him on a part of the coast whence he might best make his way to his own country of Appin. But in attempting this the Covenant took ground and sank off the coast of Mull. Those on board saved themselves as they best could, David separately; being first cast on the Isle of Earraid, and thence making his way across Mull. Alan had passed before by the same road, and left word that David should follow and rejoin him in his own country at the house of his kinsman, James Stewart of the Glens. On his way to keep this tryst, David found himself in Appin on the same day when the King's Factor, Colin Roy Campbell of Glenure, came with a force of red-coats to drive out the tenants from the forfeited estates of Ardshiel, and was present when Glenure was slain upon the roadside by a shot out of a neighbouring wood. Suspected of complicity at the moment when he was in the act of giving chase to the unknown murderer, David betook himself to flight, and was quickly joined by Alan Breck, who, though he had not fired the shot, was lurking not far off. The two now lived the life of hunted men upon the moors, the outcry on account of the murder being very great, and its guilt being declared to rest on James Stewart of the Glens, the already outlawed Alan Breck, and a lad unknown, being no other than David Balfour; for whose apprehension blood-money was offered and the country scoured by soldiery. In the course of their wanderings, David and Alan visited James Stewart at Aucharn, were concealed in Cluny Macpherson's cage, and