The Black Douglas Part 59

As it was Sholto who had first entered, so it was Sholto who first left the Tower of Death. He it was also who, at the head of a strong band, surprised the marshal's sleepy inner guard, and helped to bind them with his own hands. It was Sholto who, at the foot of the stairs of the great keep, stood listening that he might know the right moment to lead the besiegers upward.

But even as he stood thus, down the stairway there came pealing a terrible cry, the shriek of a woman in the final agony, shrill, desperate, unavailing.

And at the sound Sholto flew up the stone steps in the direction of the cry, not knowing what he did, save that he went to kill.

And scarce a foot behind him followed the woodman, Louis Verger, and as they fled upward the red gloom grew brighter till they seemed to be rushing headlong into a furnace mouth.

CHAPTER LVIII

THE WHITE TOWER OF MACHECOUL

So at the command of the Marshal de Retz they sent to bring forth Margaret of Douglas and Maud Lindesay out of the White Tower, where they had been abiding. Margaret had gone to bed, and, as was her custom, Maud Lindesay sat awhile by her side. For so far as they could they kept to the good and kindly traditions of Castle Thrieve. It seemed somehow to bring them nearer home in that horrible place where they were doomed to abide.

"Give me your hand, Maud, and tell on," said little Margaret, nestling closer to her friend, and laying her head against her arm as she leaned on the low bedstead beside her.

Margaret was gowned in a white linen night-rail, made long ago for the marshal's daughter, little Marie de Retz, in the brighter days before the setting up of the iron altar. Catherine, his deserted wife, had been kind to the girls at Pouzages, and had given to both of them such articles of garmenture as they were sorely in need of.

"Tell on--haste you," commanded little Margaret, with the imperiousness of loving childhood, nestling yet closer as she spoke.

"It helps me to forget. I can almost think when you are speaking that we are again at Thrieve, and that if we looked out at the window we should see the Dee running by and Screet and Ben Gairn--and hear Sholto MacKim drilling his men out in the courtyard. Why, Maudie, what is the matter? I did not mean to make you cry. But it is all so sweet to think upon in this place. Oh, Maudie, Maudie, what would you give to hear a whaup whistle?"

Then drawing herself into a sitting posture, with her hands about Maud's neck, she took a kerchief from under the pillow and dried her friend's tears, murmuring the while, "Ah, do not cry, Maud, my vision will yet come true, and you shall indeed see Ben Gairn and Thrieve--and everything. I was dreaming about it last night. Shall I tell you about it, sweet Maud?"

Maud Lindesay did not reply, not having recovered power over her voice. So the little Maid of Galloway went on unbidden.

"Yes, I dreamed a glad dream yester-even. Shall I tell it you all and all? I will--though you can tell stories far better than I.

"Methought that I and you--I mean, dear Maud, you and I, were sitting together in the gloaming at the door of a little house up on the edges of the moorland, where the heather is prettiest, and reddest, and longest. And we were happy. We were waiting for some one. I shall not tell you who, Maudie, but if you are good, and stop crying, you can guess. And there was a ring on your finger, Maud. No, not like the old ones--not a pretty ring like those in your box, yet you loved it more than them all, and never stopped turning it about between your finger and thumb.

"They had let me come up to stay with you, and the men who had accompanied me were drinking in the clachan. As we sat I seemed to hear their loud chorus, sounding up from the change-house.

"And you listened and said: 'I wish he would come. He is very long. It is always long when he is away.' But you never said who it was that was long away. And I shall not tell you, though I know. Perhaps it was old Jock Lacklands, who used to be captain of the guard, and perhaps grouting Peter, from the gate-house by the ford. But somehow I do not think so. Ah, that is better! Now do not cry again. But listen, else I will not tell you any more, but go off to sleep instead.

"Perhaps you do not want to hear the rest. Yet--it was such a pretty dream, and of good omen.

"You _do_ want to hear? Well, then, be good!

"As we sat there we could hear the b.u.mblebees scurrying home, and every now and then one of the big boom-beetles would sail whirring past us. We could hear the sheep crying below in the little green meadows so lonesomely, and the snipe bleating an answer away up in the sky above their heads, and you said, '_It is all so empty, wanting him!_'

"Then the maids brought in the cows, and milked them standing at the gable end, and we could smell the smell of their breath, sweet like the scent of the flowers they had been eating all day long. Then, after a while, they were driven out of the yard again, and went in a string, one after the other, back to their pastures, doucely and sedately, just like folk going to holy kirk on Sabbath days when it is summer time in Galloway.

"Then you said, 'I am weary of waiting for him!' And I answered, 'Why,--he has not been gone more than a day. Sometimes I do not see him for weeks, and _I_ never fret like that!'

"Then you answered (it has all come so clear into my mind), 'Some day you will know, little one!' And you patted me on the head, and went to the house end to look into the sunset. You looked many minutes under your hand, and when you came back you said, as if you had never said it before, 'He is long a-coming! I wonder what can be keeping him.'

"Then the maidens told us that the supper was ready to put on the table, whereat you scolded them, telling them that it was too early, and that they must keep it hot against their master's coming. And to me you said, 'You are not hungry, are you?' And I answered, 'No,'

though I was indeed very hungry--(in my dream, that is). Then you said again, sighing: 'It is strange that he should not come home! I cannot eat till he comes! Perhaps he has fallen into a ditch, or some eagle may have pecked out his eyes!'

"Then all the while it grew darker, and still no one came. Whereat you cried a little softly, and said: 'He might have come--I know right well he could have been here by this time if he had tried. But he does not love me any more.' And you were patting the ground with your foot as you used to do when--well, when he went away from Thrieve without coming out upon the leads to say 'Good-night.' Then, all at once, there was a noise of quick feet brushing eagerly through the heather, and some one (no, not Landless Jock) leaped the wall and caught me--_me_--in his arms."

"No, it was not you whom he caught in his arms!" cried Maud Lindesay, indignantly, and then stopped, abashed at her own folly. But the little maid laughed merrily.

"Aha!" she said, "_I_ caught you that time in my trap. You know who it was in my dream, though I have never told you, nor so much as hinted.

"And he asked if you had missed him, and you made a sign for me not to speak, just as you used to do at Castle Thrieve, and answered, 'No, not a little bit! Margaret and I were quite happy. We hoped you would not come back at all this night, for then we could have slept together.'"

Maud Lindesay drew a long, soft breath, and looked out of the window of the White Tower into the dark.

"That is a sweet dream," she murmured. "Ah, would that it were true, and that Sholto--!"

She broke off short again, for the maid clapped her hands gleefully.

"You said it! You said it!" she cried. "You called him Sholto. Now I know; and I am so glad, for he is nearly as good to play with as you.

And I shall not mind him a bit."

Little Margaret stopped short in her turn, seeing something in her friend's face.

"Why are you suddenly grown so sad, Maudie?" she asked.

"It came upon me, dear Margaret," said Maud, "how that we are but two helpless maids in a dreadful place without a friend. Let us say a prayer to G.o.d to keep us!"

Then Margaret Douglas turned and knelt with her face to the pillow and her small hands clasped in front of her.

"Give me your silver cross," she said, "I lent the little gold one that was William's to the Lady Sybilla, and she hath not returned it me again."

Maud gave her the cross and she took it and held it in the palm of her hand looking long at it. Then she repeated one by one the children's orisons she had been taught, and after that she made a little prayer of her own. This is the prayer.

"Lord of mercy, be good to two maids who are lonely and weak, and shut up in this place of evil men. Keep our lives and our souls, and also our bodies from harm. Make us not afraid of the dark or of the devil.

For Thou art the stronger. And do not forget to be near us this night, for we have no other friend and sorely do we need one to love and deliver us. Amen."

It was true. More bitterly than any two in the whole world, these maidens needed a friend at that moment. For scarcely had the childish accents been lost in the night silence, when the outer door of the White Tower was thrown open to the wall, and on the steps of the turret stair they heard the noise of men coming upwards to their prison-room.

But first, though the inner door of their chamber was locked within, the bolts glided back apparently of their own accord. It opened, and the hideous face of La Meffraye looked in upon them with a cackle of fiendish laughter.

"Come, sweet maidens," she cried gleefully, as the frightened girls clasped each other closer upon the bed, "come away. The Marshal de Retz calls for you. He hath need of your beauty to grace his feast.

The lights of the banquet burn in his hall. See the fire of burning shine out upon the night. The very trees are red with it. The skies are red. All is red. Come--up--make yourselves fair for the eyes of the great lord to behold!"

Then behind La Meffraye entered Gilles de Sille and Poitou, the marshal's servants.

"Make ready in haste--you are both to go instantly before my lord, who abides your coming!" said Gilles de Sille. "Poitou and I will abide without the door, and La Meffraye here shall be your tirewoman and see that you have that which you need. But hasten, for my lord is instant and cannot be kept waiting!"

So they brought the Scottish maidens down from the White Tower into the night. They walked hand in hand. Their steps did not falter, and, as they went, they prayed to G.o.d to keep them from the dangers of the place. Astarte, the she-wolf, who must have kept guard beneath, stalked before them, and behind them they seemed to hear the hobbling crutch and cackling laughter of La Meffraye.

Across the wide courtyard of Machecoul they went. It also was filled with the reflection of the red tide of light which ebbed and flowed, waxing and waning above. Saving for that window the whole castle was wrapped in gloom and silence, and if there were any awake within the precincts they knew better than to spy upon the midnight doings of their dread lord.