'I ask not mercy,' said I, 'for I own that I would have killed you if I
could. But as you are a valiant man, give me a sword and let me make a
stand for it against you all, that as I have lived so I may also die
fighting.'
But he mocked me, hurrying on in his heady turmoil of words.
'"If I be a man," you say--who said that I was a man? Do I act as other
men? Is my knowledge like that of other men? Do I company with other
men? Call you that a man?' (He pointed to Sawny Bean, who for
wantonness sat on an upturned tub, striking with a keen-edged knife at
the legs of all that came by for mere delight of blood, storming at them
meantime with horrid imprecations to approach nearer and be flicked.)
'Or call you these men?' (He showed me some of the younger cannibal
race gnawing like kennelled dogs at horrid bones.) 'Nay, my dainty
wanton, you shall not enter Hell through the brave brattle of warring
blades, nor yet handling your rapier like a morris-dancer. But as the
blood drains to the white from the stricken calf, so shall they whiten
your flesh for the tooth, and so reluctantly shall your life drip from
you drop by drop.'
And I declare that this scornful fiend telling me of tortures in choice
words made me scunner more than the prick of the knife. For the
abhorred invention quickened the imagination and set the nerves agate.
So that I was honestly glad when he took knife in hand--a shoemaker's
curved blade with a keen cutting edge.
'Strip him naked!' he cried. And very cheerfully so they did, smiting
me the meantime with the broad of their hand.
Then John Mure leaned over me delicately, and made as though he would
have traced with his knife the jointing of my limbs, saying, 'Thus and
thus shall the she-tribe dismember your body when the torture of the
ant's nest is ended.' And again 'Here is toothsome eating, Sawny Bean,
thou chief lover of dainty vivers.'
Then, as the evil man went on with his pitiless jestings, his grey cloak
began to waver before me, his face to glow like fire, and I fainted or
dwamed away till the sharp knife pricked me into consciousness again.
Yet Auchendrayne overdid his threatening, for the too sharp relish of
the words issued in tranced dulness ere the matter came to action. And
of torture there was none that I can now remember or bear the mark
of--save only the slight scores of the knife which he made when he
showed me where they would joint and haggle my body.
Indeed, I mind no more till I came to myself, lying on my back, with the
cave all empty save for John Mure--who sat, as before, with his hand to
his ear listening.
But there sounded a great and furious uproar down by the cave mouth, the
deep baying of bloodhounds, the fierce cry of many voices striving for
mastery, and above all the shrieks of the smitten.
Surely, I thought, there is a battle fierce and fell at the cave's
mouth. John Mure sat and listened for a long space, and presently he
looked over at me.
'I will even make sure of him, come what may,' he said.
And with that he took the knife and came nearer to smite me in the
breast, and I lay as one dead already, waiting for the stroke.
But even in that moment as I held my breath a ravening hound darted
within the cave, overleaped the embers of the fire, and pinned the
grey-haired murderer to the earth by the throat. He struck out
desperately, but the dog held him fast. Another and another came in,
till, as it seemed, he was in danger of being torn to pieces of dogs.
But me they minded not at all, for (as I say) I lay as one dead.
* * * * *
And this is the story of the chase as Nell told it to me when all was
over.
As they of the King's company looked from the shore towards the south,
there in the distance was John Mure on his horse disappearing into the
wood, and I (as it seemed) at his very heels. Both of us were leaning
far forward, like men that run a race. And because she knew that I
carried no equipment with me, Nell leaped upon a horse with a sword laid
before her crosswise on the saddle.
Whereupon I turned to Nell and called her the bravest maid in broad
Scotland, with other names as I could mind them. But she set her head
aside, and would content me nothing (though I was minded for kindness),
saying only, 'If you do not desire to hear the tale, then I am saved the
fash of telling it. 'Tis no time for fooling,' said she, 'when I am
speaking of the saving of your life.'
'Nell,' said I (for I was nettled at her indifference), 'thou art an
unseasoned lass, skilless in love's mysteries.'
'I want none of Kate Allison's love-skilling at second hand,' said Nell,
harking back like a pretty shrew on her former taunts. 'Since ye are so
wise, unriddle me the manner of your saving from the cave of Sawny Bean,
and I am content to yield me to your teaching in the mysteries.'
Yet even with this fair promise I could not, but desired her instead to
continue her tale-telling.
'Well,' said she, 'Robert Harburgh it was who, next after me, took
horse--and not far behind either. For he had but to disentangle the
bridle from his arm, while I had to beguile another to lend me his
horse.
'So, in a little, we were all after you, and we took the wood in the
very place you entered. But naught could we find save the trail of you
all confused among the trees. Then what a chasing hither and thither
there followed. Even the King searched for you like any common man, and
puffed and blew upon his purple cheeks like the Dominie on his pipes.
And he that had been our companion, this same Dominie, went about
everywhere, seeking and crying each time that he came near to me,
"Reckless loon, reckless loon, well he deserves to be unbreeched and
soundly paid for this hardiness."
'Then we utterly lost you, and I believe they would have given up the
search. But I minded me of the dogs that James of Chapeldonnan keeps
for his own purposes, which on my way to Ailsa I had seen his wife feed.
So I told the Earl John of them, and he had James Bannatyne brought, and
bade him bring them to set on the trail, promising him his life if the
matter were brought to a good issue.
'And so Robert Harburgh and a few swords were sent to Chapeldonnan with
James Bannatyne--with his life upon it if he played them false, and
Robert Harburgh's sword near his ribs each time that he faltered or
failed to remember. And the good wife, seeing her man in such deadly
case, came back herself to plead with the King for him.
'So the Chapeldonnan pack was laid on the trail, and fine well-hungered
bloodhounds they were. But so soon as I heard the first deep bay, when,
with noses on the ground, they took the line of the shore, it went to my
heart that since you were the last to enter the wood the dogs would
first seize you. So I cried a word to Robert Harburgh, and we two that
loved you spurred horses and sped on well-nigh level with the dogs.
'And through all the windings and wimplings of your path we followed
till we came to the shore, where, together with the King's oaken staff
which had been in your hand, we found the place all trampled with naked
feet and stains of blood. So we traced you across the shore grass to
the sand and over the sand into the sea, with a company of bare feet and
many stains of blood.
'Then for a moment I knew not what to think. But Marjorie, my sister,
cried out, "It is the vile wretches of Sawny Bean's band who have taken
him to the Cave of Death!"
'Then I remembered that the entrance to the cavern was among the rocks,
and yet because of the gladness that was in our hearts when we issued
forth, I had taken no very great pains to mind the exact place. Nor was
the Dominie aught the wiser. For he had been wholly intent on blowing
upon his pipes. But Marjorie minded better than any of us the cleave in
the rocks, and showed us to a nearness where the cave entrance was. But
the tide had flowed in, and we had perforce to wait and calm our
impatience as best we might till it went back again, ere we could follow
into the cave mouth. But by this time it was dark, so that the
men-at-arms had to find rosin torches and set them alight.
'Thus with the flambeaux blazing and the smoke wavering red overhead we
took our way along the wet edge of the sea. But the tide had washed
away all traces of blood and feet. Up and down the coast we wandered
trying every covert. And yet for our lives we could not hit upon the
right cave's entrance. The dogs ran yelping and nosing here and there,
but for long nothing came of it.
'Then Earl John and the King himself threatened James Bannatyne to
reveal the place. But he denied that he had any knowledge of the cave.
And whether he spoke truth or no I cannot say. But his wife went to the
King and holding his bridle rein, she said, "Well do I ken, your
Majesty, that my man's life is forfeit, but he is my husband. And at
least, so far as it concerns him and me, betwixt barn-door and bed-stock
I can rule him as a wife should. Gin I persuade him to lead you to the
spot, will ye on your word, give me my ain man's life?"
'So the King promised, though Earl John hung a little on the form of the
words. Then went the goodwife of Chapeldonnan to her husband. And what
she said to him I know not, for they spake privily and apart. But
though at first he shook his head and denied, as I could see, that he
had any knowledge of the Cave of Death, yet in a little while he took
some other thought and ran forward to grip one of the dogs.
'Then went James Bannatyne on ahead, with all of us hotfoot after him,
with the torches and the swords.'
'And you also, Nell,' said I,' 'were you lurking with the men-at-arms,
and which had you, a sword or a torch?'
'I had both,' said Nell Kennedy, shortly. And went on with her tale as
if she had been speaking of milking-stools.
'James Bannatyne took the dog into all the wide cave mouths and made him
smell the walls and floor above the tide mark, talking to the brute all
the time and encouraging him. But for a long time it was still in vain.
'At last the other dog which had been left to itself, bayed out suddenly
from among the rocks, where it had found a dark and dismal archway with
a wide pool of water in it, which we had passed time and again without
suspicion. And at the entrance to this place we found the second hound,
with tail erected, baying up the cave mouth from the edge of the pool.
'Then so soon as James Bannatyne brought in his well-taught dog, it
began to smell hither and thither with erected ears and bristling hair.
Presently it swam away into the darkness. And because the men hesitated
to go after the beast, I took the water to show them the way.'
Hearing which, I had made my acknowledgments.