"We now observed his hands were bloody, and that there were spots of
blood on his face, and waited the issue with impatience; when suddenly,
undoing the corner of his plaid, he rolled down on the table a human
head, bloody and new severed, saying at the same time, 'Lie thou where
the head of a better man lay before ye.' From the haggard features,
and matted red hair and beard, partly grizzled with age, his father and
others present recognised the head of Hector of the Mist, a well-known
leader among the outlaws, redoubted for strength and ferocity, who had
been active in the murder of the unfortunate Forester, uncle to Allan,
and had escaped by a desperate defence and extraordinary agility,
when so many of his companions were destroyed. We were all, it may
be believed, struck with surprise, but Allan refused to gratify our
curiosity; and we only conjectured that he must have overcome the outlaw
after a desperate struggle, because we discovered that he had sustained
several wounds from the contest. All measures were now taken to ensure
him against the vengeance of the freebooters; but neither his wounds,
nor the positive command of his father, nor even the locking of the
gates of the castle and the doors of his apartment, were precautions
adequate to prevent Allan from seeking out the very persons to whom he
was peculiarly obnoxious. He made his escape by night from the window of
the apartment, and laughing at his father's vain care, produced on one
occasion the head of one, and upon another those of two, of the Children
of the Mist. At length these men, fierce as they were, became appalled
by the inveterate animosity and audacity with which Allan sought out
their recesses. As he never hesitated to encounter any odds, they
concluded that he must bear a charmed life, or fight under the
guardianship of some supernatural influence. Neither gun, dirk, nor
dourlach [DOURLACH--quiver; literally, satchel--of arrows.], they
said, availed aught against him. They imputed this to the remarkable
circumstances under which he was born; and at length five or six of the