"Wallace, Wallace!" cried she, wringing her hands, and still struggling
with her women. At that moment a huge wave, sinking before her,
discovered the object of her fears, straining along the surface of a
rock, and followed by the men in the same laborious task, tugging
forward the ropes to which the bark was attached. She gazed at them
with wonder and affright, for, notwithstanding the beating of the
elements (which seeming to find their breasts of iron and their feet
armed with some preternatural adhesion to the cliff), they continued to
bear resolutely onward. Fortunately, they did not now labor against
the wind. Sometimes they pressed forward on the level edge of the
rock; then a yawning chasm forced them to leap from cliff to cliff, or
to spring on some more elevated projection. Thus, contending with the
vortex and the storm, they at last arrived at the doubling of
Cuthonrock,** the point that was to clear them of this minor Corie
Vrekin. But at that crisis the rope which Wallace held broke, and,
with the shock, he fell backward into the sea. The foremost man
uttered a dreadful cry; but ere it could be echoed by his fellows,
Wallace had risen above the waves, and, beating their whelming waters
with his invincible arm, soon gained the vessel and jumped upon the
deck. The point was doubled, but the next moment the vessel struck,
and in a manner that left no hope of getting her off. All must take to
the water or perish, for the second shock would scatter her piecemeal.

**Cuthon means the mournful sound of waves.

Again Lady Mar appeared. At sight of Wallace she forgot everything but
him; and perhaps would have thrown herself into his arms, had not the
anxious earl caught her in his own.