"My lord," said the prince, clasping his hands, "I swear by all my hope in Heaven's mercy, by that blessed altar before which I received her hand, and where I gave my solemn troth, that I know not where she is; but will spend the last drop of my blood to discover and to save her."
"Go to!" said the enraged father, hoarsely; "dost think I will believe all this? 'Sdeath, he who deceives me once may readily do so again. But I will have vengeance sure for it. Every man in Strathearne shall be in his helmet ere the morrow's sun sets, and I will nail my gauntlet on your father's palace-gate, in token of what a Scottish peer may do."
On hearing this threat, the two Drummonds, who shared all the indignation of their chief, twisted their shaggy mustachios, and played with the hilts of their long iron-hilted swords, in their fiery impatience.
"I am as little accustomed to deceive, my lord, as I am to be disbelieved or misunderstood," replied the prince; "and again I swear to you, by all we hold most sacred, that I have spoken to the verity, and the verity alone. My Margaret——"
"Behold the only trace of her," said Lord Drummond, as he roughly grasped Rothesay's hand, and drew him a few paces down the wynd, to where they could see the north-east tower of his mansion. There Rothesay's eye first caught sight of Margaret's well-known window. It was open: the fragments of a rope-ladder were yet streaming out upon the wind, and various passengers were grouped in the street below, conferring and surmising, with upturned faces, on what had happened there overnight. On beholding these ocular proofs of some terrible catastrophe, the prince lost alike his patience and presence of mind. He unsheathed his sword, and exclaimed,
"We have been discovered and betrayed!"
"Thank God, this emotion seems genuine!" said Drummond, as he leaned on his long weapon, and grimly scrutinized the prince; "betrayed, sayst thou? but by whom, dost thou think?"
"By some of my father's favourites."
"Right! by the hand of St. Fillan, I thought these varlets had something to do with this outrage. Can the king know it, think ye?" asked Drummond, with a terrible glare in his eyes, as he turned to his kinsmen, Balloch and Carnock, who both drew their swords, as if by instinctive use and wont.
"Alas, I said not that," replied Rothesay, giving way to tears; "but my mind is a chaos—I can no longer think."