on of the traitors Crichton and Livingston. But even to this
the Earl had his answer.

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

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

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

But David Douglas sat still and answered not. Then Sholto, desperate
of success with his master, approached David, and with gentle force
would have compelled him to the window. But, at the first touch of his
hand, the boy thrust him away, striking him fiercely upon the
shoulder.

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

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

"I will not;" cried the boy; "I tell you I will bide where my brother
bides 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 prisoner
within."

"God in heaven!" cried a stern voice from below which made Sholto
start, "we shall be broken first and last upon that woman. Would to
God I had slain her with my hand! Tell the Earl that if he will not
come to those that wait for him underneath the tower, I, Malise
MacKim, will come and fetch him like a child in my arms, even as I did
from under the pine trees at Loch Roan."

And as he spoke the strain of the rope and its swaying over the
window-sill proclaimed that the mighty form of the master armourer was
even then on the way upwards towards the dungeon of