The Black Douglas

by S. R. Crockett

This door fixed the lad's attention with a certain curious fascination. He longed to touch it and see whether it opened, but for the moment he was too much afraid of his guide's return to summon him into the presence of the marshal.

He listened intently. Surely he heard a low sound, like the wind in a distant keyhole—or, as it might be (and it seemed more like it), the moaning of a child in pain, it knows not why.

The heart of the youth gave a sudden leap. It came to him that he had hit upon the hiding-place of Margaret Douglas, the heiress of the great province of Galloway. His fortune was made.

With a trembling hand he moved a step towards the door of white wood with the curious burned marks upon it. He stood a moment listening, half for the returning footsteps of Clerk Henriet, and half to the low, persistent whimper behind the panels. Suddenly he felt his right foot wet, for, as was the fashion, he wore only a velvet shoe pointed at the toe. He looked down, and lo! from under the door trickled a thin stream of red.

Laurence drew his foot away, with a quick catching sob of the breath. But his hand was already on the door, and at a touch it appeared to open almost of its own accord. He found himself looking from the dusk of the outer whitewashed passage into a high, vaulted chapel, wherein many dim lights glimmered. At the end there was a great altar of iron standing square and solemn upon the platform on which it was set up, and behind it, cut indistinctly against a greenish glow of light, and imagined rather than clearly defined, the vast statue of a man with a curiously high shaped head. Laurence could not distinguish any features, so deep was the gloom, but the whole figure seemed to be bending slightly forward, as if gloating upon that which was laid upon the altar. But what struck Laurence with a sense of awe and terror was the fact that as the greenish light behind waxed and waned, he could see shadowy horns which projected from either side of the forehead, and lower, short ears, pricked and shaggy like those of a he-goat.

Nearer the door, where he stood in the densest gloom, something moved to and fro, and as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness Laurence could see that it was the bent figure of a woman. He could not distinguish her face, but it was certainly a woman of great age and bodily weakness, whose tangled hair hung down her back, and who halted curiously upon one foot as she walked. She was bending over a low couch, whereon lay a little shrouded figure, from which proceeded the low whimpering sound which he had heard from without. But even at that moment, as he waited trembling at the door, the moaning ceased, and there ensued a long silence, in which Laurence could clearly distinguish the beating of his own heart. It sounded loud in his ears as a drum that beats the alarm in the streets of a city.

The figure of the woman bent low to the couch, and, after a pause, with a satisfied air she threw a white cloth over the shrouded form which lay upon it. Then, without looking towards the door where Laurence stood, she went to the great iron altar at the upper end of the weird chapel and threw something on the red embers which glowed upon it.

"Barran—most mighty Barran-Sathanas, accept this offering, and reveal thyself to my master!" she said in a voice like a chant.

A greenish smoke of stifling odour rose and filled all the place, and through it the huge horned figure above the altar seemed to turn its head and look at the boy.

Laurence could scarcely repress a cry of terror. He set his hand to the door, and lo! as it had opened, so it appeared to shut of itself. He sank almost fainting against the cold iron bars of the window which looked out upon the courtyard below. The wind blew in upon him sweet and cool, and with it there came again the sound of the singing of the choir. They were practising the song of the Holy Innocents, which, by command of the marshal himself, Precentor Renouf had set to excellent and accordant music of his own invention.