knights and princes?'

The knight raised the visor of his helmet. The evening sun shone
resplendently on his damasked blue armour and the St. Andrew's cross on
his breast, and lighted up that red fire that lurked in his eyes, and
withal the calm power and righteous indignation on his features might
have befitted an avenging angel wielding the lightning.

'Thou wilt know me when we meet again,' was all he said; and for the very
calmness of the voice the Master of Albany, who was but a mere
commonplace insolent ruffian, quailed with awe and terror to the very
backbone.

'Loose me, and I will swear,' he faintly murmured.

Sir James, before removing his foot, unclasped his gorget, and undoing a
chain, held up a jewel shaped like a St. Andrew's cross, with a diamond
in the midst, covering a fragmentary relic. At the sight Walter
Stewart's eyes, large pale ones, dilated as if with increased
consternation, the sweat started on his forehead, and his breath came in
shorter gasps. Malcolm and Lilias, standing near, likewise felt a sense
of strange awe, for they too had heard of this relic, a supposed fragment
of St. Andrew's own instrument of martyrdom, which had belonged to St.
Margaret, and had been thought a palladium to the royal family and House
of Stewart.

'Rise on thy knees,' said Sir James, now taking away his foot, 'and swear
upon this.'

Walter, completely cowed and overawed, rose to his knees at his victor's