“I am Sir Archibald Forbes,” Archie said proudly —­ “a name which may have reached you even here.”

“Archibald Forbes!” exclaimed MacDougall furiously.  “What! the enemy and despoiler of the Kerrs!  Had you a hundred lives you should die.  Didst know this, Marjory?” he said furiously to the girl.  “Didst know who this young adventurer was when you asked his life of me?”

“I did, uncle,” the girl said fearlessly.  “I did not know his name when he surrendered to me, and afterwards, when he told me, what could I do?  I had given my promise, and I renewed it; and I trust, dear uncle, that you will respect and not bring dishonour upon it.”

“Dishonour!” MacDougall said savagely; “the girl has lost her senses.  I tell you he should die if every woman in Scotland had given her promise for his life.  Away with him!” he said to his retainers; “take him to the chamber at the top of the tower; I will give him till tomorrow to prepare for death, for by all the saints I swear he shall hang at daybreak.  As to you, girl, go to your chamber, and let me not see your face again till this matter is concluded.  Methinks a madness must have fallen upon you that you should thus venture to lift your voice for a Forbes.”

The girl burst into tears as Archie was led away.  His guards took him to the upper chamber in a turret, a little room of some seven feet in diameter, and there, having deprived him of his arms, they left him, barring and bolting the massive oaken door behind them.

Archie had no hope whatever that Alexander MacDougall would change his mind, and felt certain that the following dawn would be his last.  Of escape there was no possibility; the door was solid and massive, the window a mere narrow loophole for archers, two or three inches wide; and even had he time to enlarge the opening he would be no nearer freedom, for the moat lay full eighty feet below.

“I would I had died sword in hand!” he said bitterly; “then it would have been over in a moment.”

Then he thought of the girl to whom he had surrendered his sword.

“It was a sweet face and a bright one,” he said; “a fairer and brighter I never saw.  It is strange that I should meet her now only when I am about to die.”  Then he thought of the agony which his mother would feel at the news of his death and at the extinction of their race.  Sadly he paced up and down his narrow cell till night fell.  None took the trouble to bring him food —­ considering, doubtless, that he might well fast till morning.  When it became dark he lay down on the hard stone, and, with his arm under his head was soon asleep —­ his last determination being that if possible he would snatch a sword or dagger from the hand of those who came to take him to execution, and so die fighting; or if that were impossible, he would try to burst from them and to end his life by a leap from the turret.

He was awakened by a slight noise at the door, and sprang to his feet instantly, believing that day was at hand and his hour had come.  To his surprise a voice, speaking scarcely above a whisper, said: