“You!” said Murdoch, in astonishment, “you, a chief among the Children of the Mist, and ventured so near your mortal foe?”

“Son of Diarmid, I did more,” replied the outlaw; “I was in the hall of the castle, disguised as a harper from the wild shores of Skianach.  My purpose was to have plunged my dirk in the body of the M’Aulay with the Bloody hand, before whom our race trembles, and to have taken thereafter what fate God should send me.  But I saw Annot Lyle, even when my hand was on the hilt of my dagger.  She touched her clairshach [Harp] to a song of the Children of the Mist, which she had learned when her dwelling was amongst us.  The woods in which we had dwelt pleasantly, rustled their green leaves in the song, and our streams were there with the sound of all their waters.  My hand forsook the dagger; the fountains of mine eyes were opened, and the hour of revenge passed away.—­And now, Son of Diarmid, have I not paid the ransom of my head?”

“Ay,” replied Murdoch, “if your tale be true; but what proof can you assign for it?”

“Bear witness, heaven and earth,” exclaimed the outlaw, “he already looks how he may step over his word!”

“Not so,” replied Murdoch; “every promise shall be kept to you when I am assured you have told me the truth.—­But I must speak a few words with your companion in captivity.”

“Fair and false—­ever fair and false,” muttered the prisoner, as he threw himself once more on the floor of his dungeon.

Meanwhile, Captain Dalgetty, who had attended to every word of this dialogue, was making his own remarks on it in private.  “What the HENKER can this sly fellow have to say to me?  I have no child, either of my own, so far as I know, or of any other person, to tell him a tale about.  But let him come on—­he will have some manoeuvring ere he turn the flank of the old soldier.”

Accordingly, as if he had stood pike in hand to defend a breach, he waited with caution, but without fear, the commencement of the attack.

“You are a citizen of the world, Captain Dalgetty,” said Murdoch Campbell, “and cannot be ignorant of our old Scotch proverb, GIF-GAF, [In old English, Ka me Ka thee, i.e. mutually serving each other.] which goes through all nations and all services.”

“Then I should know something of it,” said Dalgetty; “for, except the Turks, there are few powers in Europe whom I have not served; and I have sometimes thought of taking a turn either with Bethlem Gabor, or with the Janizaries.”

“A man of your experience and unprejudiced ideas, then, will understand me at once,” said Murdoch, “when I say, I mean that your freedom shall depend on your true and up right answer to a few trifling questions respecting the gentlemen you have left; their state of preparation; the number of their men, and nature of their appointments; and as much as you chance to know about their plan of operations.”