"I will not bandy words with you, my Lord Douglas. You are overmastered. Yield yourself, therefore, as indeed you must without remeed. Deliver your weapons and submit; 'tis our will."
"My brave Chancellor," said the Earl William, still in a voice of pleasant irony, "you have well chosen your time to shame yourself. We are your invited guests, and the guests of the King of Scotland. We are here unarmed, sitting at meat with you in your own house. We have come hither unattended, trusting to the honour of these noble knights and gentlemen. Therefore my brother and I have no swords to deliver. But if, being honourable men, you stand, as is natural, upon a nice punctilio, I can satisfy you."
He turned again to Sholto MacKim.
"Give me your sword," he said. "'Tis better I should render it than you."
With great unwillingness the captain of the guard of Thrieve did as he was bidden. The Earl reversed it in his hand and held it by the point.
"And now, my Lord Chancellor, I deliver you a Douglas sword, depending upon the word of an honourable man and the invitation of the King of Scotland."
But even so the chancellor would not advance from behind the cover of his soldiery, and the Earl looked around for some one to whom to surrender.
"Will you then appoint one of your knights to whom I may deliver this weapon? Is there none who will dare to come near even the hilt of a Douglas sword? Here then, Sholto, break it over your knee and cast it upon the board as a witness against all treachery."
Sholto did as he was told, breaking his sword and casting the pieces upon the table in the place where the King of Scots had sat.
"And now, my lords, I am ready," said the Earl, and his brother David stood up beside him, looking as they faced the unbroken ring of their foes the two noblest and gallantest youths in Scotland.