"Such cowardly precepts may suit their droning monks, but not the Douglases of Thrave," responded her fiery sister. "We have been foully wronged, and I have sworn by our Lady of Whitekirk – by her son and St. Bryde – to have a vengeance on this boy-king and his chancellor, – a vengeance so sure and deep, that every king in Christendom shall feel his heart tremble within him, if he dares to wrong a subject as they have wronged me. Ha! – hear ye that?" she added, as a strangely malignant gleam passed over her dark eyes.
"Death to Gray – bring him forth – a rope! a rope!"
"'Tis the voice of Achanna," said Sir Patrick, starting; while Murielle, on hearing the roar of men's voices and the clatter of arms without and within the house, uttered a low cry of terror, and clung to his breast.
By a hasty glance from the window, Gray saw that the court-yard was full of armed men, who, with drawn swords and bent cross bows, were crowding into the staircase. He saw James of Abercorn, who was on horseback, and who shook his gauntleted hand towards him; he saw that the garden, the gate, the wynd, and every avenue to escape were beset by glittering pikes and partisans, and a cold perspiration burst over his brow at the sudden prospect of helplessly suffering a cruel and violent death. His heart was almost too full for words; but he kissed Murielle tenderly.
"Long, long, it may be," he said, with a foreboding sigh, "ere that dear kiss can be repeated – it may be never; but oh, Murielle, tide what may, let no other efface it from your beloved lips!"
The voices and clatter of arms came nearer.
"Save him, sister – save him, Maggie. You may and can do it!" exclaimed Murielle, rushing to the door of the large chamber, which she closed, and drew across into the stone socket the massive oak bar by which it was secured. She had barely achieved this ere the din of blows from mailed hands, from sword-hilts, and the butts of crossbows and partisans, rang upon it in a shower.
Many fierce voices summoned those who were within to open; otherwise, that fire would be applied to force an entrance.
Drawing his sword and dagger, Gray was about to unclose it, and attempt to hew a passage through them – an attempt which would inevitably have ended where it began, as there were a legion of foes without, all thirsting for vengeance, eager for outrage and homicide – all men inured to daily turbulence, peril, and bloodshed.
The clatter and uproar increased rapidly, as the numbers outside seemed to multiply. The door, though of solid oak, was yielding fast, and already the blades of several swords were repeatedly passed through it, and withdrawn to give place to others.
"Save him, Maggie dear – dear sister, save him, in mercy to me, if not to himself," implored Murielle, clinging to the waist of Margaret, who stood haughtily erect, like a tragedy-queen, with a sneer upon her proud lip, while undisguised alarm was now expressed in her fine eyes, at the prospect of seeing Gray butchered in her presence, though she hated him in her heart; "save him, sister, save him!"
"Am I an armed man?" she asked coldly. "In what fashion am I to save your minion?"
"Ha! – by the stair – the secret stair. Oh God, how that door shakes – in another moment it will yield! – the secret stair – the abbot gave you the key."
"True," said Margaret, as she drew a key from her bosom, and tossed it contemptuously on the floor.
With a cry of joy Murielle picked it up, and, seizing Gray by the hand, said,
"You are saved – quick – come this way."
At the side of one of the deeply-embayed windows she withdrew the arras, and unlocked a little door which gave access to a narrow passage, formed in the thickness of the ancient wall.
"Descend here. There are twenty-one steps; the passage at the foot leads to the garden, and the wall there is low. Push open the door at the lower end among the ivy, and you are free. Heaven, in its goodness, be your guide!"
"Ah, that I had but twelve pikes of my guard to scatter this rabble like winnowed chaff! Adieu, Murielle; I shall live and escape, if I can! If not, look from your window, my love – my dear, dear love – and you shall see how toughly a brave and loyal gentleman can die!"
With these words, and full of desperate thoughts, Gray rushed down the secret stair, while Murielle, with a sigh almost of rapture, locked the door. Then, with a prayer of thankfulness, she thrust the key into her bosom; but, fearing it might not be quite safe even there, she cast it into the great fire of coals and oak roots which burned on the hearth.
At that moment the door was burst open, and the tall grim laird of Pompherston, with his helmet open and his sword drawn, rushed in, with a confused mob of pikemen and archers at his back.
On seeing only the countess and her sister, he and his flushed followers seemed perplexed, and turned away to prosecute their search elsewhere. But soon the clash of weapons and shouts of exultation and ferocity in the garden drew all there to join the fray.
Murielle sprang to the nearest window, and oh, what a sight she saw there!
Sir Patrick Gray issuing from the doorway of the secret passage, covered with blood and wounds; his pourpoint rent and torn; his sword and dagger bloody, after a combat maintained in the dark against Achanna and six others, who, as already related, had beset the way and attacked him, with terrible advantage, in the obscurity, which concealed alike their number and their deadly purpose.
Undismayed, with his sword in his right hand and a long Scottish dagger in his left, Gray rushed upon his assailants, and they quickly parted before him; but only to close in his rear, while fresh foes met him in front.
What a sight for Murielle to gaze upon, while, gasping and shrieking, she clung to the iron bars of the hall window, and surveyed the terrible scene below, where one poor human life was struggling so nobly and so desperately for existence against so many!
Brave heart! he will sell that life dearly, for it is doubly valuable now. Youth and love – the love of Murielle – are his, and for both he has to live and to conquer!
No slogan or shout, entreaty or threat, are uttered by him, as, with teeth clenched, brows knit, and every nerve and fibre strained, he stabs and shreds and hews about him, trampling underfoot those who fall beneath his hand.
He casts one brief and despairing glance at the window, for he knows that she is there; and to the horror of being thus helplessly butchered by the kinsmen of Murielle, is added the bitter consciousness that she beholds it, alike unable to assist or save him.
He is the aim of a hundred flashing weapons and infuriated men, who, in their blind eagerness to destroy him, impede and inflict severe wounds on each other.
His pourpoint hangs from his shoulders in rags, and more than one long arrow dangles by its barbed point from his shirt of mail. Now his helmet is struck from his head; an exulting cheer rises from the rabble that surge around him; but still he towers above them like a rock, and hews another, another, and another down!
Now, as he concentrates all his energies, the crowd parts before him; he has reached the outer gate, and then a cry for "rescue" rises in the street beyond.
He reels, he staggers to his knee!
Yet up he springs again. Heavens! there is a long and bloody streak across his pallid face; and now his sword-blade breaks; but he wrests another from an assailant, whom he hurls to the earth and treads under foot, lest he should rise and fight again!
On, on yet, and now he has fought his way through the gate, beyond which, on horseback, sits grim Earl James of Abercorn, like a mailed statue, surveying with fierce eyes this appalling scene; and now, faint with wounds and loss of blood, Gray staggers like a dying man towards him, and clutches his stirrup-leather.