sudden stound of the heart, that I remembered
what it was that ten months and more ago had been set up there. But I am
sure that, sharp-set on his love matter, like a beast that hunts
nose-down on a hot trail, Wat Gordon had no memory for the decorations
of the Netherbow. For he whistled as he went, and stuck his hand deeper
into the breast of his coat. The moon came out as I looked, and for a
moment, dark and grisly against the upper brightness, I saw that row of
traitors' heads which the city folk regarded no more in their coming and
going, than the stone gargoyles set in the roof-niches of St. Giles.

But as soon as Wat went under the blackness of the arch, there came so
fierce a gust that it fairly lifted me off my feet and dashed me against
the wall. Overhead yelled all the mocking fiends of hell, riding
slack-rein to a new perdition. The snow swirled tormented, and wrapped
us both in its grey smother. Hands seemed to pull at me out of the
darkness, lifted me up, and flung me down again on my face in the smoor
of the snow. A great access of fear fell on me. As the gust overpassed,
I rose, choked and gasping. Overhead I could hear the mighty blast go
roaring and howling away among the crags and rocks of Arthur's Seat.

Then I arose, shook the snow from my dress, glanced at the barrels and
cocks of my pistols to see that they were not stopped with snow, and
stepped out of the angle of the Bow to look after my cousin. To my utter
astonishment, he was standing within four feet of me. He held some dark
thing in his hand, and stared open-mouthed at it, as one demented.
Without remembering that I had come out at my lady's bidding to follow
Wat Gordon secretly, I stepped up to him till I could look over his
shoulder.

"Walter!" I said, putting my hand on his arm.

But he never minded me in the least, nor yet appeared surprised to find
me there. Only a black and bitter horror sat brooding on his soul.

He continued to gaze, fascinated, at the dark thing in his hand.

"GOD--GOD--GOD!" he sobbed, the horror taking him short in the throat.
"Will, do you see THIS?"

Such abject terror never have I heard before nor since in the utterance
of any living man.

"Do you see This?" he said. "See what fell at my feet as I came through
the arch of the Bow upon mine errand! The wind brought it down."

Above the moon pushed her way upwards, fighting hard, breasting the
cloud wrack like a labouring ship.

Her beams fell on the d