“My lord, my lord! For maircy's sake gie's a hold of you!” stammered Mr. Gallosh, falling on his hands and knees and feeling for the skirt of his lordship's kilt.
But their flight was arrested by a portent so remarkable that had there been only a single witness one would suppose it to be a figment of his imagination. Fortunately, however, both the Baron and Mr. Gallosh can corroborate each detail. About the middle, apparently, of the wall opposite, an oblong of light appeared in the thickest of the gloom.
“Mein Gott!” cried the Baron.
“It's filled wi' reek!” gasped Mr. Gallosh.
And indeed the space seemed filled with a slowly rising cloud of pungent blue smoke. Then their horrified eyes beheld the figure of an undoubted Being hazily outlined behind the cloud, and at the same time the piper, as if sympathetically aware of the crisis, burst into his most dreadful discords. A yell rang through the gloom, followed by the sounds of a heavy body alternately scuffling across the floor and falling prostrate over unseen furniture. The Baron felt for his host, and realized that this was the escaping Gallosh.
“Tulliwuddle! Speak!” a hollow voice muttered out of the smoke.
The Baron has never ceased to exult over the hardihood he displayed in this unnerving crisis. Rising to his feet and drawing his claymore, he actually managed to stammer out—
“Who—who are you?”
The Being (he could now perceive dimly that it was clad in tartan) answered in the same deep, measured voice—
“Your senses to confound and fuddle,
Behold the Wraith of Tulliwuddle!”