d lash our swords to
the wooden lever, but I do not think we shall have any fighting. The
night will be dark, and the Spaniards, believing that we have no boats,
will not keep a very strict watch. The worst part of the business is the
swim across the river, the water will be bitterly cold; but as you and I
have often swum Scotch burns when they were swollen by the melting snow
I think that we may well manage to get across this sluggish stream."

"At what time will we be starting, sir?"

"Be here at the edge of the river at six o'clock, sergeant. I can get
away at that time without exciting comment, and we will say nothing
about it unless we succeed."

Thinking it over, however, it occurred to Malcolm that by this means
a day would be lost--and he knew how anxious the king was to press
forward. He therefore abandoned his idea of keeping his discovery
secret, and going to his colonel reported that he had found a boat, and
could bring it across from the other side by seven o'clock.

The news was so important that Munro at once went to the king. Gustavus
ordered three hundred Swedes and a hundred Scots of each of the
regiments of Ramsay, Munro, and the Laird of Wormiston, the whole under
the command of Count Brahe, to form up after dark on the river bank and
prepare to cross, and he himself came down to superintend the passage.
By six it was perfectly dark. During the day Malcolm had placed two
stones on the edge of the water, one exactly opposite the boat, the
other twenty feet behind it in an exact line. When Gustavus arrived at
the spot where the troops were drawn up, Malcolm was taken up to him by
his colonel.

"Well, my brave young Graheme," the king said, "so you are going to do
us another service; but how will you find the boat in this darkness?
Even were there no stream you would find it very difficult to strike the
exact spot on a dark night like this."

"I have provided against that, sir, by placing two marks on the bank.
When we start lanterns will be placed on these. We shall cross higher up
so as to strike the bank a little above where I believe the boat to be,
then we shall float along under the bushes until the lanterns are in
a line one with another, and we shall know then that we are exactly
opposite the boat."

"Well thought of!" the king exclaimed. "Munro, this lieutenant of yours
is a treasure. And now God speed you, my friend, in your cold swim
across the stream!"

Malcolm and the sergeant now