meant to give. Seeing their consequent disorder, Wallace ordered the
pikes to be dropped, and his men to charge sword in hand. Terrible was
now the havoc, for the desperate Scots, grapling each to his foe with a
fatal hold, let not go till the piercing shriek, or the agonized groan,
convinced him that death had seized its victim. Wallace fought in
front, making a dreadful passage through the falling ranks, while the
tremendous sweep of his sword, flashing in the intermitting light,
warned the survivors where the avenging blade would next descend. A
horrid vacuity was made in the lately thronged spot; it seemed not the
slaughter of a mortal arm, but as if the destroying angel himself were
there, and with one blast of his desolating brand, had laid all in
ruin. The platform was cleared, and the fallen torches, some
half-extinguished, and other flaming on the ground by the sides of the
dead, showed, in their uncertain gleams, a few terrified wretches
seeking safely in flight. The same lurid rays, casting a transitory
light on the iron gratings of the great tower, informed Wallace that
the heat of conflict had drawn him to the prison of the earl.

"We are now near the end of this night's work!" cried he. "Let us
press forward to give freedom to the Earl of Mar!"

"Liberty and Lord Mar!" cried Kirkpatrick, rushing onward. He was
immediately followed by his own men, but not quickly enough for his
daring. The guard in the tower, hearing the outcry, issued from the
flanking gates, and, surrounding him, took him prisoner.

"If there be might in your arms," roared he, with the voice of a lion,
"men of Loch Dione, rescue your leader!"

They hurried forward, with yells of defiance; but the strength of the