sight of a dark and shaggy beast running on all fours just turning out
of the corridor, and taking the first step of the descent towards the
floor beneath. Without pausing to consider, Sholto lunged forward with
all his might, and his sword struck the fugitive quadruped behind the
shoulder. He had time to see in the pale bluish flicker of the
_cruisie_ lamp that the beast he had wounded was of a dark colour, and
that its head seemed immensely too large for its body.

Nevertheless, the thing did not fall, but ran on and vanished out of
Sholto's sight. The young man again set the silver call to his lips
and blew. The next moment he could hear the soldiers of the guard
clattering upward from their hall, and he himself ran along the
corridor towards the place whence the screams of terror seemed to
proceed.




CHAPTER XVI

SHOLTO CAPTURES A PRISONER OF DISTINCTION


He found that the noise came from the chamber occupied by the little
Lady Margaret. When he arrived at the door it stood open to the wall.
The child was sitting up on her bed, clothed in the white garmentry of
the night. Bending over her, with her arms round the heaving shoulders
of the little girl, Sholto saw Maud Lindesay, clad in a dark, hooded
mantle thrown with the appearance of haste about her. The door of the
next chamber also stood wide, and from the coverlets cast on the floor