The governor now had a meal with some wine set before Archie, and then left him alone.

“I am not at Carlisle yet,” Archie said to himself.  “Unless I mistake, we shall have Sir James thundering at the gate before morning.  Cluny will assuredly have ridden off at full speed to carry the news when he saw that I was cut off, and e’en now he will be marching towards the castle.”  As he expected, Archie was roused before morning by a tremendous outburst of noise.  Heavy blows were given, followed by a crash, which Archie judged to be the fall of the drawbridge across the fosse.  He guessed that some of Douglas’s men had crept forward noiselessly, had descended the fosse, and managed to climb up to the gate, and had then suddenly attacked with their axes the chains of the drawbridge.

A prodigious uproar raged in the castle.  Orders were shouted, and the garrison, aroused from their sleep, snatched up their arms and hastened to the walls.  Outside rose the war cry, “A Douglas!  A Douglas!” mingled with others of, “Glen Cairn to the rescue!” For a few minutes all was confusion, then a light suddenly burst up and grew every instant more and more bright.

“Douglas has piled faggots against the gates,” Archie said to himself.  “Another quarter of an hour and the castle will be his.”

Three or four minutes later the governor with six soldiers, two of whom bore torches, entered the room.  “You must come along at once, sir knight,” the governor said.  “The attack is of the fiercest, and I know not whether we shall make head against it, but at any rate I must not risk your being recaptured, and must therefore place you in a boat and send you off without delay to the castle at Port Patrick.”

It was in vain for Archie to think of resistance, he was unarmed and helpless.  Two of the soldiers laid hands on him and hurried him along until they reached the lower chambers of the castle.  The governor unlocked a door, and with one of the torch bearers led the way down some narrow steps.  These were some fifty in number, and then a level passage ran along for some distance.  Another door was opened, and the fresh breeze blew upon them as they issued forth.  They stood on some rocks at the foot of the promontory on which the castle stood.  A large boat lay close at hand, drawn to the shore.  Archie and the six soldiers entered her; four of the latter took the oars, and the others seated themselves by their prisoner, and then the boat rowed away, while the governor returned to aid in the defence of the castle.

The boat was but a quarter of a mile away when on the night air came the sound of a wild outburst of triumphant shouts which told that the Scots had won their way into the castle.  With muttered curses the men bent to their oars and every minute took them further away from Knockbawn.

Archie was bitterly disappointed.  He had reckoned confidently on the efforts of Douglas to deliver him, and the possibility of his being sent off by sea had not entered his mind.  It seemed to him now that his fate was sealed.  He had noticed on embarking that there were no other boats lying at the foot of the promontory, and pursuit would therefore be impossible.