"DAVID,
"Cardinal, Sancti Andrea, Commendator de Arbroath,
Chancellor of Scotland.*
"From our Palace of Holyrood,
the 20th day of May, 1537."
* It is thus the Cardinal signed his name to more than one document in the author's possession.
"There, now, was not rumour right for once?" said Forrester.
"Still the same enmity to my unfortunate friend!" said Roland, whose face became pale, and whose teeth were clenched with anger.
"So we are to search for Lord Ashkirk among the Douglases," laughed Leslie; "a right perilous expedition. Take thy tall valet with thee, Vipont. 'Fore Heaven! that fellow, with his prodigious sword, were worth a troop of lances on such a service."
Roland glanced keenly at the speaker. Had he penetrated the earl's disguise? but there was nothing to be read but pure honesty and candour in Leslie's handsome features. He suspected not that the dictators of the order he had just received knew well that the earl was much nearer than Douglasdale.
"Ha! do you not hear something?" said Roland, rising up and listening.
"The cry of a woman, as I live!" replied Leslie; "shrill and deathly, too, as of one in sore distress; and there, now, is the patter of pistolettes!"