, carrying his master's helmet to the armoury. Then still
without speech to any he brushed hastily up the stairs towards the
upper floor, which he had set Andro the Penman and his brother to
guard.

At the turning of the staircase David Douglas, the Earl's brother,
stopped him. Sholto moved in salute and would have passed by.

But David detained him with an impetuous hand.

"What is this?" he said; "you have set two archers on the stairs who
have shot and almost killed the ambassador's two servants, Poitou the
man-at-arms, and Henriet the clerk, just because they wished to take
the air upon the roof. Nay, even when I would have visited my sister,
I was not permitted--'None passes here save the Earl himself, till
our captain takes his orders off us!' That was the word they spoke.
Was ever the like done in the castle of Thrieve to a Master of Douglas
before?"

"I am sorry, my Lord David," said Sholto, respectfully, "but there
were matters within the knowledge of the Earl which caused him to lay
this heavy charge upon me."

"Well," said the lad, quickly relenting, "let us go and see Margaret
now. She must have been lonely all this fair day of summer."

But Sholto smiled, well pleased, thinking of Maud Lindesay.

"I would that I had a lifetime of such loneliness as Margaret's hath
been this day," he said to himself.

At the turning of the stair they were stayed, for there, his foot
advanced, his bow ready to deliver its steel bolt at the clicking of a
trigger, stood Andro the Swarthy.

From his stance he commanded the stair and could see along the
corridor as well.

David Douglas caught his elbow on something which stood a few inches
out of the oaken panelling of the turnpike wall. He tried to pull it
out. It was the steel quarrel of a cross-bow wedged firmly into the
wood and masonry. He cried: "Whence came this? Have you been murdering
any other honest men?"

The archer stood silent, glancing this way and that like a sentinel on
duty. The two young men went on up the stair.

As their feet were approaching the sixth step, a sudden word came from
the Penman like a bolt from his bow.

"Halt!" he cried, and they heard the _gur-r-r-r_ of his steel ratchet.

Sholto smiled, for he knew the nature of the man.

"It is I, your captain," he said. "You have done your duty well, Andro
the Penman. Now get down to your dinner. But first give an account of
your adventures."

"Do you relieve us from our charge?" said