And there in the blown reek of torches and the hush of the courtyard of Thrieve Malise told all the tale of the Black Dinner and the fatal morning, of the short shrift and the matchless death, while around him strong men sobbed and lifted up right hands to swear the eternal vengeance.

But alone and erect as a banner staff stood the mother of the dead.  Her eyes were dry, her lips compressed, her nostrils a little distended like those of a war-horse that sniffs the battle from afar.  Outside the castle wall the news spread swiftly, and somewhere in the darkness a voice set up the Celtic keen.

“Bid that woman hold her peace.  I will hear the news and then we will cry the slogan.  Say on, Malise!”

Then the smith told how his horse had broken down time and again, how he had pressed on, running and resting, stripped almost naked that he might keep up with his son, because that no ordinary charger could long carry his great weight.

Then when he had finished the Lady of Thrieve turned to Sholto—­“And you, captain of the guard, what have you done, and wherefore left you your master in his hour of need?”

Then succinctly and to the point Sholto spoke, his father and Laurence assenting and confirming as he told of the Earl’s commission and of how he had accomplished those things that were laid upon him.

“It is well,” said the lady, calmly, “and now I also will tell you something that you do not know.  My little daughter, whom ye call the Fair Maid of Galloway, with her companion, Mistress Maud Lindesay, went out more than twelve hours agone to the holt by the ford to gather hazelnuts, and no eye of man or woman hath seen them since.”

And, even as she spoke, there passed a quick strange pang through the heart of Sholto.  He remembered the warning of the Lady Sybilla.  Had he once more come too late?

CHAPTER XXXIX

THE GIFT OF THE COUNTESS

It was the Countess of Douglas who commanded that night in the Castle of Thrieve.  Sholto wished to start at once upon the search for the lost maidens.  But the lady forbade him.

“There are a thousand searchers who during the night will do all that you could do—­and better.  To-morrow we shall surely want you.  You have been three nights without sleep.  Take your rest.  I order you in your master’s name.”

And on the bare stone, outside Maud Lindesay’s empty room, Sholto threw himself down and slept as sleep the dead.

But that night, save about the chamber where abode the mother of the Douglases, the hum of life never ceased in the great Castle of Thrieve.  Whether my lady slept or not, God knows.  At any rate the door was closed and there was silence within.

Sholto awoke smiling in the early dawn.  He had been dreaming that he and Maud Lindesay were walking on the shore together.  It was a lonely beach with great driftwood logs whereon they sat and rested ere they took hands again and walked forth on their way.  In his dream Maud was kind, her teasing, disdainful mood quite gone.  So Sholto awoke smiling, but in a moment he wished that he had slept on.