bout eight feet square and of the height of a man of
stature when he stands erect.

The hearts of the three present cave-dwellers were sick and sad, and
of them all the bitterest was the heart of Sholto MacKim. It seemed
to his eager lover's spirit, as he climbed to the top of the sand
dunes and gazed towards the massive towers of Machecoul rising above
the green woodlands, that hitherto they had but wandered and done
nothing. The sorcerer had prevented them about with his evil. They had
lost Laurence utterly, and for the rest they had not even touched the
outer defences of their arch enemy.

Thrice they had tried to enter the castle. The first time they had
taken by force two waggons of fuel from certain men who went towards
Machecoul, leaving the woodmen behind in the forest, bound and
helpless. But at the first gate of the outer hall the marshal's guard
had stopped them, and demanded that they should wait till the cars
were unloaded and brought back to them. So, having received the money,
the Scots returned as they went to the men whom they had left in the
forest.

After this repulse they had gone round and round the vast walls of
Machecoul seeking a place vulnerable, but finding none. The ramparts
rose as it had been to heaven, and the flanking towers were crowded
night and day with men on the watch. Round the walls for the space of
a bow-shot every way there ran a green space fair and open to the
view, but in reality full of pitfalls and secret engines. From the
battlements began the arrow hail, so soon as any attempted to approach
the castle along any other way than the thrice-defended road to the
main gate.

The wolves howled in the forests by night, and more than once came so
near that one of the three men had to take it in turns to keep watch
in the cave's mouth. But for a reason not clear to them at the time
they were not again attacked by the marshal's wild allies of the
wood.

The third time they had tried to enter the castle in their pilgrim's
garb, and the outer picket courteously received them. But when they
were come to the inner curtain, one Robin Romulart, the officer of the
guard, a stout fellow, suddenly called to his men to bind and gag
them--in which enterprise, but for the great strength of Malise, they
might have succeeded. For the outer gates had been shut with a clang,
and they could hear the soldiers of the garrison hasting from all
sides in answer to Robin's summons.

But Malise snat