“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 his chief.

“Go back, I command you, Malise MacKim,” he said, “go back instantly.  I have made up my mind.  I will not escape from the Castle of Edinburgh this night.”

But Malise answered not a word, only pulled more desperately on the rope, till the sound of his labouring breath and grasping palms could be heard from side to side of the chamber.

The Earl leaned further out.

“Malise,” he said, calm and clear, “you see this knife.  I would not have your blood on my hands.  You have been a good and faithful servant to our house.  But, by the oath of a Douglas, if you come one foot farther, I will cut the rope and you shall be dashed in pieces beneath.”