The Black Douglas

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  BETRAYED WITH A KISS

  The earl and his brother were incarcerated in the lower chamber of theHigh Keep called David's Tower, which rose next in order eastward fromthe banqueting-hall, following the line of the battlements.

  Beneath, the rock on which the castle was built fell away towards theNor' Loch in a precipice so steep that no descent was to be thoughtof--and this indeed was the chief defence of the prison, for thewindow of the chamber was large and opened easily according to theFrench fashion.

  "I pray that you permit my young knight, Sir Sholto MacKim, toaccompany me," said the Earl to the officer who conducted them totheir prison-house.

  "I have no orders concerning him," said the man, gruffly, butnevertheless permitted Sholto to enter after the Earl and his brother.

  The chamber was bare save for a _prie-dieu_ in the angle of the wall,at which the Douglas looked with a strange smile upon his face.

  "Right _a propos_," said he; "they have need of religion in this houseof traitors."

  David Douglas went to the window-seat of low stone, and bent his headinto his hands. He was but a boy and life was sweet to him, for he hadjust begun to taste the apple and to dream of the forbidden fruit. Heheld his head down and was silent a space. Then suddenly he sobbedaloud with a quick, gasping noise, startling enough in that stillplace.

  "For God's dear sake, David laddie," said his brother, going over tohim, placing his hand upon his shoulder, "be silent. They will thinkthat we are afraid."

  The boy stilled himself instantly at the word, and looked up at hisbrother with a pale sort of smile.

  "No, William, I am not afraid, and if indeed we must die I will notdisgrace you. Be never feared of that. Yet I thought on our mother'sloneliness. She will miss me sore, for she fleeched and pled with menot to come, yet I would not listen to her."

  Sholto stood by the door, erect as if on duty at Thrieve.

  "Come and sit with us," said the Earl William kindly to him, "we areno more master and servant, earl and esquire. We are but three youthsthat are to die together, and the axe's edge levels all. You, Sholto,are in some good chance to live the longest of the three by some halfscore of minutes. I am glad I made you a knight on the field ofhonour, Sir Sholto, for then they cannot hang you to a bough, like avarlet caught stealing the King's venison."

  Sholto slowly came over to the window-seat and stood thererespectfully as before, with his arms straight at his side, feelingmore than anything else the lack of his sword-hilt to set his righthand upon.

  "Nay, but do as I bid you," said the Earl, looking up at him; "sitdown, Sholto."

  And Sholto sat on the window-seat and looked forth upon the lightsleaping out one after another down among the crowded gables of thetown as this and that burgher lit lamp or lantern at the nearing ofthe hour of supper.

  Far away over the shore-lands the narrow strip of the Forth showedamethystine and mysterious, and farther out still the coast of Fifelay in a sort of opaline haze.

  "I wonder," said William Douglas, after a long pause, "what they havedone with our good lads. Had they been taken or perished we had surelyheard more noise, I warrant. Two score lads of Galloway would not giveup their arms without a tulzie for it."

  "They might induce them to leave them behind, when they went out totake their pleasures among the maids of the Lawnmarket," said Sholto.

  "Not their swords," said the Earl, "it needed all your lord's commandsto make yours quit your side. I warrant these fellows will give anexcellent account of themselves."

  Presently the night fell darker, and a smurr of rain drifted over fromthe edges of Pentland, mostly passing high above, but with lowerfringes that dragged, as it were, on the Castle Rock and the Hill ofCalton.

  The three young men were still silently looking out when suddenly fromthe darkness underneath there came a low voice.

  "'Ware window!" it said, "stand back there above."

  To Sholto the words sounded curiously familiar, and almost withoutthinking what he did, he seized the Earl and his brother and draggedthem away from the wide space of the lattice, which opened into thesummer's night.

  "'Ware window!" came again the cautious voice from far below. Sholtoheard the whistle and "spat" of an arrow against the wall without. Itmust have fallen again, for the voice 'came a third time--"'Warewindow!"

  And on this occasion the archer was successful, guided doubtless bythe illumination of the lantern the guard had hung on a nail, andwhose flicker would outline the lattice faintly against the darknessof the wall.

  An arrow entered with a soft hiss. It struck beyond them with a click,and its iron point tinkled on the floor, the plaster of the oppositewall not holding it.

  Sholto scrambled about the floor on hands and knees till he found it.It was a common archer's arrow. A cord was fastened about it, and anote stuck in the slit along with the feather.

  "It is my brother Laurence," whispered Sholto. "I warrant he isbeneath with a rope and a posse of stout fellows. We shall escape themyet."

  But even as he raised the letter to read it by the faint blue flickerof the lantern, there came a cry of pain from within the castle. Itwas a woman's voice that cried, and at the sound of pleading speech insome chamber above them, William Douglas started to his feet.

  The words were clear enough, but in a language not understood bySholto MacKim. They seemed intelligible enough, however, to the Earl.

  "I knew it," he cried; "the false hounds have imprisoned her also. Itis Sybilla's voice. God in heaven--they are torturing her!"

  He ran to the door and shook it vehemently.

  "Ho! Without there!" he cried imperiously, as if in his own Castle atThrieve.

  But no one paid any attention to his shouts, and presently the woman'svoice died down to a slow sobbing which was quite audible in the roombeneath, where the three young men listened.

  "What did she say?" asked David, presently, of his brother, who stillstood with his ear to the door.

  The Earl first made a gesture commanding silence, and then, hearingnothing more, he came slowly over to the window. "It is the LadySybilla," he said, in a voice which revealed his deep emotion. "Shesaid, in the French language, 'You shall not kill him. You shall not!He trusted me and he shall not die.'"

  Meanwhile Sholto, knowing that there was no time to lose, had beendrawing in the cord, which presently thickened into a rope stoutenough to support the weight of a light and active youth such as anyof the three young men imprisoned in David's Tower.

  But the sound of the woman's tears had thrown the Earl into anexcitement so extreme that he hammered on the great bolt-studded doorwith his bare clenched hands, and cried aloud to the Chancellor andLivingston, commanding them to open to him. His first calmness seemedcompletely broken up.

  Meanwhile Sholto, his whole soul bent on the cord which gave theunseen Douglases a chance of saving the lives of their masters, haddrawn thirty yards of stout rope into the room. He fixed it by adouble knot, first to a ring which was let into the wall, andafterwards to the massive handle of the door itself.

  "Now, my lord," he whispered, as he finished, "be pleased to gofirst. Our lads are beneath, and in the shaking of a cow's tail weshall be safe in the midst of them."

  The Earl held up his hand with the quick imperative motion he used tocommand silence. The sound of the woman's voice came again from above,now quick and high, like one who makes an agonised petition, and nowin tones lower that seemed broken with sobs and lamentations.

  At first William Douglas did not appear to comprehend the meaning ofSholto's words, being so bent on his listening. But when the youngcaptain of the guard again reminded him that the time of their chancesfor relief was quickly passing, and that the soldiers of theChancellor might come at any moment to lead them to their doom, theEarl broke out upon him in sudden anger.

  "For what crawling thing do you take me, Sholto MacKim?" he cried; "Iwill not leave this place till I know what they have done with her.She trusted m
e, and shall I prove a recreant? I would have you knowthat I am William, Earl of Douglas, and fear not the face of anyCrichton that ever breathed. Ho--there--without!" and again he shookthe door with ineffectual anger.

  His only answer was the sound of that beseeching woman's voice, andthe measured tread of the sentry, whose partisan they could seeflashing in the lamplight through the narrow barred wicket, as heturned in front of their door.

  And it was now all in vain that Sholto pled with his master. To everyargument Lord Douglas replied, "I cannot go--it consorts not withmine honour to leave this castle so long as the Lady Sybilla is intheir hands."

  Sholto told him how they could now escape, and in a week would raisethe whole of the south, returning to the siege of the castle and thedestruction of the traitors Crichton and Livingston. But even to thisthe Earl had his answer.

  "What--flee like a coward and leave this girl, who has loved andtrusted me, defenceless in their hands! You yourself have heard herweeping. I tell you I cannot go--I will not go. Let David and youescape! My place is here, and neither snivelling Crichton nor thatbackstairs lap-dog Livingston shall say that they took the Earl ofDouglas, and that he fled from them under cloud of night."

  David Douglas had been standing by hopefully while Sholto tied therope to the rings. At his brother's words he sat down again. Williamof Douglas turned about upon him.

  "Go, David, I bid you. Escape, and if aught happen to me, fail not tomake the traitors pay dearly for it."

  But David Douglas sat still and answered not. Then Sholto, desperateof success with his master, approached David, and with gentle forcewould have compelled him to the window. But, at the first touch of hishand, the boy thrust him away, striking him fiercely upon theshoulder.

  "Hands off!" he cried, "I also am a Douglas and no craven. I willabide by my brother to the end."

  "No, my David," said the Earl, turning for a moment from the doorwhere he had been again listening, "you shall not stay! You are thehope of our house. My mother would fret to death if aught happened toyou. This is not a matter which concerns you. Go, I bid you. On me itlies, and if I must pay the reckoning, why at least only I drank thewine."

  "I will not;" cried the boy; "I tell you I will bide where my brotherbides and his fate shall be mine."

  Then Sholto, well nigh frantic with apprehension and disappointment,went to the window and leaned out, gripping the sill with his hands.

  "They will not leave the castle," he whispered as loud as he dared;"the Earl will not escape while the Lady Sybilla remains a prisonerwithin."

  "God in heaven!" cried a stern voice from below which made Sholtostart, "we shall be broken first and last upon that woman. Would toGod I had slain her with my hand! Tell the Earl that if he will notcome to those that wait for him underneath the tower, I, MaliseMacKim, will come and fetch him like a child in my arms, even as I didfrom under the pine trees at Loch Roan."

  And as he spoke the strain of the rope and its swaying over thewindow-sill proclaimed that the mighty form of the master armourer waseven then on the way upwards towards the dungeon of his chief.

  "Go back, I command you, Malise MacKim," he said, "go back instantly.I have made up my mind. I will not escape from the Castle of Edinburghthis night."

  But Malise answered not a word, only pulled more desperately on therope, till the sound of his labouring breath and grasping palms couldbe heard from side to side of the chamber.

  The Earl leaned further out.

  "Malise," he said, calm and clear, "you see this knife. I would nothave your blood on my hands. You have been a good and faithful servantto our house. But, by the oath of a Douglas, if you come one footfarther, I will cut the rope and you shall be dashed in piecesbeneath."

  The master armourer stopped--not with any fear of death upon him, butlest a stroke of his master's dirk should destroy their well-arrangedmode of escape.

  "O Earl William, my dear lord, hear me," he said in a gasping voice,still hanging perilously between earth and heaven. "If I have indeedbeen a faithful servant, I beseech you come with me--for the sake ofthe house of Douglas and of your mother, a widow and alone."

  "Go down, Malise MacKim," said the Earl, more gently; "I will speakwith you only at the rope's foot."

  So very unwillingly Malise went back.

  "Now," said the Earl, "hearken--this will I do and no other. I willremain here and abide that which shall befall me, as is the will ofGod. I am bound by a tie that I cannot break. What life is to another,honour and his word must be to a Douglas. But I send your son Sholtoto you. I bid him ride fast to Galloway and bring all that arefaithful with speed here to Edinburgh. Go also into Douglasdale andtell my cousin William of Avondale--and if he is too late to save, Iknow well he will avenge me."

  "O William Douglas, if indeed ye will neither fleech nor drive, I prayyou for the sake of the great house to send your brother David, thatthe Douglases of the Black be not cut off root and branch. Remember,your mother is sore set on the lad."

  "I will not go," cried David, as he heard this; "by the saints I willstand by my brother's shoulder, though I be but a boy! I will not goso much as a step, and if by force ye stir me I will cry for theguard!"

  By this time the young David was leaning half out of the window, andalmost shouting out his words down to the unseen Douglases beneath.

  "Go, Sholto," said the Earl, setting his hand on his squire'sshoulder. "You alone can ride to Galloway without drawing rein. Goswiftly and bring back every true lad that can whang bow, or garsword-iron whistle. The Douglas must drie the Douglas weird. I wouldhave made you a great man, Sir Sholto, but if you get a new master, hewill surely do that which I had not time to perform."

  "Come, Sholto," said his father, "there is a horse at the outer port.I fear the Crichton's men are warned. As it is we shall have to fightfor it."

  Sholto still hesitated, divided between obedience and grief.

  "Sholto MacKim," said the Earl, "if indeed you owe me aught of love orservice, go and do that thing which I have laid upon you. Bear acourteous greeting from me to your sweetheart Maud, and a kiss to ourMaid Margaret. And now haste you and begone!"

  Sholto bent a moment on his knee and kissed the hand of his youngmaster. His voice was choked with sobs. The Earl patted him on theshoulder. "Dinna greet, laddie," he said, in the kindly country speechwhich comes so meltingly to all Galloway folk in times of distress,gentle and simple alike, "dinna greet. If one Douglas fall in thebreach, there stands ever a better behind him."

  "But never one like you, my lord, my lord!" said Sholto.

  The Earl raised him gently, led him to the window, and himselfsteadied the rope by which his squire was to descend.

  "Go!" he said; "honour keeps the Douglas here, and his brother bideswith him--since not otherwise it may be. But the honour of obediencesends Sholto MacKim to the work that is given him!"

  Then, after the captain of his guard had gone out into the dark anddisappeared down the rope, the Earl only waited till the tensionslackened before stooping and cutting the cord at the point ofjuncture with the iron ring.

  "And now, Davie lad," he said, setting an arm about his brother'sneck, "there are but you and me for it, and I think a bit prayer wouldnot harm either of us."

  So the two young lads, being about to die, kneeled down togetherbefore the cross of Him who was betrayed with a kiss.