“The most open hand in Scotland,” replied Murdoch.
“True and faithful to his engagements?” continued Dalgetty.
“As honourable a nobleman as breathes,” said the clansman.
“I never heard so much good of him before,” said Dalgetty; “you must know the Marquis well,—or rather you must be the Marquis himself!—Lord of Argyle,” he added, throwing himself suddenly on the disguised nobleman, “I arrest you in the name of King Charles, as a traitor. If you venture to call for assistance, I will wrench round your neck.”
The attack which Dalgetty made upon Argyle’s person was so sudden and unexpected, that he easily prostrated him on the floor of the dungeon, and held him down with one hand, while his right, grasping the Marquis’s throat, was ready to strangle him on the slightest attempt to call for assistance.
“Lord of Argyle,” he said, “it is now my turn to lay down the terms of capitulation. If you list to show me the private way by which you entered the dungeon, you shall escape, on condition of being my LOCUM TENENS, as we said at the Mareschal-College, until your warder visits his prisoners. But if not, I will first strangle you—I learned the art from a Polonian heyduck, who had been a slave in the Ottoman seraglio—and then seek out a mode of retreat.”
“Villain! you would not murder me for my kindness,” murmured Argyle.
“Not for your kindness, my lord,” replied Dalgetty: “but first, to teach your lordship the JUS GENTIUM towards cavaliers who come to you under safe-conduct; and secondly, to warn you of the danger of proposing dishonourable terms to any worthy soldado, in order to tempt him to become false to his standard during the term of his service.”
“Spare my life,” said Argyle, “and I will do as you require.”
Dalgetty maintained his gripe upon the Marquis’s throat, compressing it a little while he asked questions, and relaxing it so far as to give him the power of answering them.