orce."

There was a boding of ill in her cry, like a coronach, and the
domestics took it up in sympathy, as Highland women will. "Marget!
Marget! Mistress Marget!" rose the cry, and we became aware that all
the inmates of the castle were stirring to it. But never a response
came from Marget, never a token from the raiders, and it was forced on
me that she and they were both gone from us.

We called on her, and searched for them until the dawn came, but only
found the sword which I had encountered, and I knew it as one the Black
Colonel had long worn, and then, when he himself got a better, that
with the "S" for "Stuart" on its handle, had given to Red Murdo. The
larger knowledge, brought by the dawn, was that the raiders had
vanished as secretly as they had come, and that they had, beyond doubt,
taken Marget with them. For though--

"We sought her baith by bower and ha',
The lady was not seen."

_XIII--The Wound of Absence_

You will probably know what it is to lose somebody who by physical
fragrance, the mystery of a common spirituality, or both, has become
essential to you. The wound is twice as bitter if, until the parting,
you were unaware how much that presence really meant. It is as if you
had come into a new world of your own and then found it vanish, before
you could take possession.

I had no doubt, thanks to the hearing of his voice and the leaving
behind of his sword, that the raiders were headed by Red Murdo, the
Black Colonel's henchman. Actual light came during the morning, in the
form of a message by word of mouth: "I am a prisoner in the topmost
room of Lonach Tower, and Red Murdo and his men are camped below."

When the Highland woman who brought it had said that, she melted away
again without taking bite or sup. She lived in the ruin of Lonach
Tower, and that was how Marget had been able to send her with the
message. She could not be too long absent, however, or she might be
missed by Red Murdo, whom, she said, she had left snoring out his lost
night's sleep.

I found a Highlander who had engaged in relations with Red Murdo,
though their nature need not be mentioned, and who was anxious to score
them off for a settled life. Working on that, I told him to go to
Lonach Tower, where he would find Red Murdo, and say the Black Colonel
was waiting at a fold of the hills, which I named--waiting to hear how
the night's work had fared! That, as you will mark, was the nice
signif