“Yes,” said MacIan, like a soldier taking orders.

“Very well, then, come on.  March.  We turn under that third bush and so down into the valley.”  And he set off ahead at a swinging walk.

Then he stopped suddenly; for he realized that the other was not following.  Evan MacIan was leaning on his sword with a lowering face, like a man suddenly smitten still with doubt.

“What on earth is the matter?” asked Turnbull, staring in some anger.

Evan made no reply.

“What the deuce is the matter with you?” demanded the leader, again, his face slowly growing as red as his beard; then he said, suddenly, and in a more human voice, “Are you in pain, MacIan?”

“Yes,” replied the Highlander, without lifting his face.

“Take some brandy,” cried Turnbull, walking forward hurriedly towards him.  “You’ve got it.”

“It’s not in the body,” said MacIan, in his dull, strange way.  “The pain has come into my mind.  A very dreadful thing has just come into my thoughts.”

“What the devil are you talking about?” asked Turnbull.

MacIan broke out with a queer and living voice.

“We must fight now, Turnbull.  We must fight now.  A frightful thing has come upon me, and I know it must be now and here.  I must kill you here,” he cried, with a sort of tearful rage impossible to describe.  “Here, here, upon this blessed grass.”

“Why, you idiot,” began Turnbull.

“The hour has come—­the black hour God meant for it.  Quick, it will soon be gone.  Quick!”

And he flung the scabbard from him furiously, and stood with the sunlight sparkling along his sword.

“You confounded fool,” repeated Turnbull.  “Put that thing up again, you ass; people will come out of that house at the first clash of the steel.”

“One of us will be dead before they come,” said the other, hoarsely, “for this is the hour God meant.”

“Well, I never thought much of God,” said the editor of The Atheist, losing all patience.  “And I think less now.  Never mind what God meant.  Kindly enlighten my pagan darkness as to what the devil you mean.”

“The hour will soon be gone.  In a moment it will be gone,” said the madman.  “It is now, now, now that I must nail your blaspheming body to the earth—­now, now that I must avenge Our Lady on her vile slanderer.  Now or never.  For the dreadful thought is in my mind.”

“And what thought,” asked Turnbull, with frantic composure, “occupies what you call your mind?”

“I must kill you now,” said the fanatic, “because——­”

“Well, because,” said Turnbull, patiently.

“Because I have begun to like you.”

Turnbull’s face had a sudden spasm in the sunlight, a change so instantaneous that it left no trace behind it; and his features seemed still carved into a cold stare.  But when he spoke again he seemed like a man who was placidly pretending to misunderstand something that he understood perfectly well.