PRINCE CHARLES AND THE LONG ISLAND. 443 



fled in terror, and hid themselves in the clefts of the rocks. 

 When their confidence was restored, they willingly supplied 

 all the information they possessed which amounted to 

 nothing at all. So completely isolated were they from the 

 outside world, that they had not even a reasonably clear 

 conception of the events which had recently convulsed the 

 kingdom. They heard a rumour, they said, that Macleod, 

 their laird, had been at war with some great king,* and 

 had got the better of him ! 



Preparations were at once set on foot by Donald 

 Macleod for conveying Charles to the Long Island. He 

 got a strongly-built, eight-oared boat from John, son of 

 Angus Macdonald of Borradale ; and well was it for all 

 concerned that her timbers were staunch and sound, for 

 she was destined to face heavy seas. On the night of 

 26th April, the Prince embarked, accompanied by Sullivan, 

 Captain O'Neil, who had joined him at Borradale, a priest 

 named Allan Macdonald (a relative of Clanranald), and 

 Pilot Donald Macleod. The eight boatmen were Alex- 

 ander, John, and Roderick Macdonald, Lachlan MacVurich, 

 Roderick Macaskill, Duncan Roy, Edward Burke, and 

 Murdoch Macleod, a boy of fifteen, who was a son of the 

 pilot. This Murdoch was at the Grammar School at Inver- 

 ness, where he imbibed the love of fighting, if not the love 

 of learning. In his Jacobite sympathies he was a chip of 

 the old block. Just before the battle of Culloden, he pro- 

 cured a claymore, dirk, and pistol, ran away from school 

 to Culloden Moor, and fought for the Prince. After the 

 battle, he found means of tracing the way Charles had 

 gone, and followed him from place to place until he met 

 his father at Borradale. 



As the boat was leaving Loch nan Uamh, the skilled eye 

 of the pilot detected the signs of a coming storm. Donald 

 begged the Prince to postpone his departure, but Charles, 

 eager to reach his destination, persisted in leaving. Before 

 they had proceeded very far, he regretted his decision. 



* Other accounts say with a " woman." 





