whose flicker would outline the lattice faintly against the darkness
of the wall.

An arrow entered with a soft hiss. It struck beyond them with a click,
and its iron point tinkled on the floor, the plaster of the opposite
wall not holding it.

Sholto scrambled about the floor on hands and knees till he found it.
It was a common archer's arrow. A cord was fastened about it, and a
note stuck in the slit along with the feather.

"It is my brother Laurence," whispered Sholto. "I warrant he is
beneath with a rope and a posse of stout fellows. We shall escape them
yet."

But even as he raised the letter to read it by the faint blue flicker
of the lantern, there came a cry of pain from within the castle. It
was a woman's voice that cried, and at the sound of pleading speech in
some chamber above them, William Douglas started to his feet.

The words were clear enough, but in a language not understood by
Sholto MacKim. They seemed intelligible enough, however, to the Earl.

"I knew it," he cried; "the false hounds have imprisoned her also. It
is Sybilla's voice. God in heaven--they are torturing her!"

He ran to the door and shook it vehemently.

"Ho! Without there!" he cried imperiously, as if in his own Castle at
Thrieve.