High and sombre in its feudal strength and architectural pride, towered up the keep of Bothwell, and its grass-tufted barbican wall. Lights flashed through the casements of turret and corridor, and loud voices were heard calling clamorously in the echoing court.
"There lies thy path," said the page, pointing towards the river; "traverse its banks for about a mile till thou reachest the bridge of Bothwell. The hamlet of the same name is near it, and there thou canst pass the night."
"Is there no place nearer? consider again, good lad," said Konrad, thinking more for Anna than himself, as he slipped the promised crown into the page's hand.
"The warder of the bridge resides in a house above the archway, which is closed after nightfall. He keeps an hostelry which affordeth good up-putting both for men and horses; but mark me, fair sir! seek neither hamlet nor hostel to-night, for we know not what evil may come of thy plaguy interview with the countess. Keep in the woods, and lie en perdu till daybreak, and then God speed thee!"
The postern closed, and Konrad stood alone.
A vague sense of danger impelled him to hurry from the vicinity of the castle; but he was less actuated by that motive than by his anxiety to rejoin Anna, from whom he had now been two hours absent, without procuring the succour she required so much.
He found the passage of the river open, for the warder had partaken somewhat freely of the potations of a traveller who had tarried there about curfew-time, and consequently he had forgotten to secure the barrier-gate that closed the roadway after dark, and which none could pass without paying toll, or drinking a can of ale at his hostel. Konrad passed on; and just as day was brightening in purple and orange on the distant hills, he began to ascend the eminence which was crowned by the ruined priory of the Augustines of Blantyre.
As day broke on the green woods of Bothwell, and the magnificent river, a hundred yards in breadth, that flowed in blue and silver light between them, no other silvan scene could surpass that landscape in beauty and romance. Contrasting strongly with the bright green of the summer forest, which was seen at intervals between the ivied buttresses and shattered windows of the gothic priory, rose Bothwell's broad round towers and ponderous ramparts, shining almost blood-red in the rising sun, being all built of ruddy-coloured stone. White and silvery, from the margin of the deep and crystal river, the morning mist curled up through the heavy foliage in a thousand fantastic shapes, and melted away in the thin air of the blue and balmy sky.
Hurrying among the grass-grown masses of the broken tombs and fallen walls, Konrad entered the vault where he had left Anna, and a pang shot through his bosom on beholding her lying at full length, still and motionless, on her bed of leaves. Her face seemed pale as death when viewed by the dim light that struggled through the arched chamber, from a little pointed window in the massive wall.
"If she should be dead!" he thought, as he stooped tenderly over her. "Ah! Heaven be thanked, she only sleeps!"