“You may attain your end more easily,” said a third voice, mingling in the conference, “by entrusting it to me.”

All Highlanders are superstitious.  “The Enemy of Mankind is among us!” said Ranald MacEagh, springing to his feet.  His chains clattered as he rose, while he drew himself as far as they permitted from the quarter whence the voice appeared to proceed.  His fear in some degree communicated itself to Captain Dalgetty, who began to repeat, in a sort of polyglot gibberish, all the exorcisms he had ever heard of, without being able to remember more than a word or two of each.

“In NOMINE DOMINI, as we said at Mareschal-College—­SANTISSMA Madre DI DIOS, as the Spaniard has it—­ALLE GUTEN Geister LOBEN den HERRN, saith the blessed Psalmist, in Dr. Luther’s translation—­”

“A truce with your exorcisms,” said the voice they had heard before; “though I come strangely among you, I am mortal like yourselves, and my assistance may avail you in your present streight, if you are not too proud to be counselled.”

While the stranger thus spoke, he withdrew the shade of a dark lantern, by whose feeble light Dalgetty could only discern that the speaker who had thus mysteriously united himself to their company, and mixed in their conversation, was a tall man, dressed in a livery cloak of the Marquis.  His first glance was to his feet, but he saw neither the cloven foot which Scottish legends assign to the foul fiend, nor the horse’s hoof by which he is distinguished in Germany.  His first enquiry was, how the stranger had come among them?

“For,” said he, “the creak of these rusty bars would have been heard had the door been made patent; and if you passed through the keyhole, truly, sir, put what face you will on it, you are not fit to be enrolled in a regiment of living men.”

“I reserve my secret,” answered the stranger, “until you shall merit the discovery by communicating to me some of yours.  It may be that I shall be moved to let you out where I myself came in.”

“It cannot be through the keyhole, then,” said Captain Dalgetty, “for my corslet would stick in the passage, were it possible that my head-piece could get through.  As for secrets, I have none of my own, and but few appertaining to others.  But impart to us what secrets you desire to know; or, as Professor Snufflegreek used to say at the Mareschal-College, Aberdeen, speak that I may know thee.”

“It is not with you I have first to do,” replied the stranger, turning his light full on the mild and wasted features, and the large limbs of the Highlander, Ranald MacEagh, who, close drawn up against the walls of the dungeon, seemed yet uncertain whether his guest was a living being.

“I have brought you something, my friend,” said the stranger, in a more soothing tone, “to mend your fare; if you are to die to-morrow, it is no reason wherefore you should not live to-night.”