“Ye mean what ye say, my lord?”
“Yes, by God!” said the marquis, with an expression I can describe only as of almost savage solemnity.
Malcolm stood silent for one moment.
“Do you think I’ll have a man about me that has no more courage than —than—a—woman!” said his master, concluding with an effort.
“I was jist turnin’ ower an auld queston, my lord—whether it be lawfu’ to obey a tyrant. But it’s na worth stan’in’ oot upo’. I s’ gang.”
He turned to the arch, placed a hand on each side of it, and leaned forward with outstretched neck, peeped cautiously in, as if it were the den of a wild beast. The moment he saw the figure—seated on a stool—he was seized with the same unaccountable agitation, and drew back shivering.
“Go in,” shouted the marquis.
Most Britons would count obedience to such a command slavish; but Malcolm’s idea of liberty differed so far from that of most Britons, that he felt, if now he refused to obey the marquis, he might be a slave for ever; for he had already learned to recognize and abhor that slavery which is not the less the root of all other slaveries that it remains occult in proportion to its potency—self-slavery:— he must and would conquer this whim, antipathy, or whatever the loathing might be: it was a grand chance given him of proving his will supreme—that is, himself a free man! He drew himself up, with a full breath, and stepped within the arch. Up rose the horror again, jerked itself towards him with a clank, and held out its hand. Malcolm seized it with such a gripe that its fingers came off in his grasp.
“Will that du, my lord?” he said calmly, turning a face rigid with hidden conflict, and gleaming white, from the framework of the arch, upon his master, whose eyes seemed to devour him.
“Come out,” said the marquis, in a voice that seemed to belong to some one else.