A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott (top 50 books to read txt) 📗

to serve for the whole campaign? If I taught you how to defeat Montrose, what becomes of my pay, arrears, and chance of booty?”

“I tell you,” said Campbell, “that if you be stubborn, your campaign shall begin and end in a march to the block at the castle-gate, which stands ready for such land-laufers; but if you answer my questions faithfully, I will receive you into my—into the service of M’Callum More.”

“Does the service afford good pay?” said Captain Dalgetty.

“He will double yours, if you will return to Montrose and act under his direction.”

“I wish I had seen you, sir, before taking on with him,” said Dalgetty, appearing to meditate.

“On the contrary, I can afford you more advantageous terms now,” said the Campbell; “always supposing that you are faithful.”

“Faithful, that is, to you, and a traitor to Montrose,” answered the Captain.

“Faithful to the cause of religion and good order,” answered Murdoch, “which sanctifies any deception you may employ to serve it.”

“And the Marquis of Argyle—should I incline to enter his service, is he a kind master?” demanded Dalgetty.

“Never man kinder,” quoth Campbell.

“And bountiful to his officers?” pursued the Captain.

“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.

“Where is the secret door into the dungeon?” he demanded.

“Hold up the lantern to the corner on your right hand, you will discern the iron which covers the spring,” replied the Marquis.

“So far so good.—Where does the passage lead to?”

“To my private apartment behind the tapestry,” answered the prostrate nobleman.

“From thence how shall I reach the gateway?”

“Through the grand gallery, the anteroom, the lackeys’ waiting hall, the grand guardroom—”

“All crowded with soldiers, factionaries, and attendants?—that will never do for me, my lord;—have you no secret passage to the gate, as you have to your dungeons? I have seen such in Germany.”

“There is a passage through the chapel,” said the Marquis, “opening from my apartment.”

“And what is the pass-word at the gate?”

“The sword of Levi,” replied the Marquis; “but if you will receive my pledge of honour, I will go with you, escort you through every guard, and set you at full liberty with a passport.”

“I might trust you, my lord, were your throat not already black with the grasp of my fingers—as it is, BESO LOS MANOS A USTED, as the Spaniard says. Yet you may grant me a passport;—are there writing materials in your apartment?”

“Surely; and blank passports ready to be signed. I will attend you there,” said the Marquis, “instantly.”

“It were too much honour for the like of me,” said Dalgetty; “your lordship shall remain under charge of mine honest friend Ranald MacEagh; therefore, prithee let me drag you within reach of his chain.—Honest Ranald, you see how matters stand with us. I shall find the means, I doubt not, of setting you at freedom. Meantime, do as you see me do; clap your hand thus on the weasand of this high and mighty prince, under his ruff, and if he offer to struggle or cry out, fail not, my worthy Ranald, to squeeze doughtily; and if it be AD DELIQUIUM, Ranald, that is, till he swoon, there is no great matter, seeing he designed your gullet and mine to still harder usage.”

“If he offer at speech or struggle,” said Ranald, “he dies by my hand.”

“That is right, Ranald—very spirited:—A thorough-going friend that understands a hint is worth a million!”

Thus resigning the charge of the Marquis to his new confederate, Dalgetty pressed the spring, by which the secret door flew open, though so well were its hinges polished and oiled, that it made not the slightest noise in revolving. The opposite side of the door was secured by very strong bolts and bars, beside which hung one or two keys, designed apparently to undo fetterlocks. A narrow staircase, ascending up through the thickness of the castle-wall, landed, as the Marquis had truly informed him, behind the tapestry of his private apartment. Such communications were frequent in old feudal castles, as they gave the lord of the fortress, like a second Dionysius, the means of hearing the conversation of his prisoners, or, if he pleased, of visiting them in disguise, an experiment which had terminated so unpleasantly on the present occasion for Gillespie Grumach. Having examined previously whether there was any one in the apartment, and finding the coast clear, the Captain entered, and hastily possessing himself of a blank passport, several of which lay on the table, and of writing materials, securing, at the same time, the Marquis’s dagger, and a silk cord from the hangings, he again descended into the cavern, where, listening a moment at the door, he could hear the half-stifled voice of the Marquis making great proffers to MacEagh, on condition he would suffer him to give an alarm.

“Not