"Well, sirs, this perilous carle is even now within arm's length of us."
"Hah! here, say you, Achanna?" said Abercorn.
"Even so,—Sir Patrick Gray."
"The Captain of the Guard! Was it he?"
"None else," was the villainous response.
"And he—he," cried twenty voices.
"Is now in the Abbot's House, at the feet of Lady Murielle, or, perhaps, at the feet of the countess; I know not which he loves, for there be some in Galloway who aver he affects them both."
"In the house here—art thou sure, Achanna?" hissed the earl, through his teeth, while a livid gleam lit his dark and sinister eyes, for he bitterly hated Gray, and had other views for Murielle than she had yet foreseen. Moreover, a ready victim was required to appease the fury which inspired the turbulent followers of his slaughtered nephews, and none could be so fit for his purpose as the Captain of the Guard. "Art thou sure," he added, "that Gray is here?"
"Sure, as that the breath of Heaven is in my nostrils!"
"By the God of my kin, our task of vengeance is beginning!" cried Earl James, rising in his stirrups, and brandishing his sword; "a rope, a rope! A Douglas! a Douglas! Ho, Pompherston, Glendoning, Cairnglas,—let us hang this king's minion at the Market Cross! Gather a band—beset the house, and watch every avenue. Achanna, is there a secret stair?"