passage through the great portal. Arnuf was at their head, and sunk to
abjectness by his despair, in a voice which terror rendered piercing,
he called aloud for mercy. The words reached the ear of Sir Roger
Kirkpatrick, who stood neared to the door. In a voice of thunder he
replied, "That ye gave, ye shall receive. Where was mercy when our
fathers and our brothers fell beneath your murderous axes!"

Aymer de Valence came up at this moment with a wooden pillar, which he
and his strongest men in the company had torn from under the gallery
that surrounded the room, and with all their strength dashing it
against the great door, they at last drove it from its bolts. But now
a wall of men opposed them. Desperate at the sight, and with a burning
furnace in their rear, it was not the might of man that could prevent
their escape, and with the determination of despair, rushing forward,
the foremost rank of Scots fell. But ere the exulting Southrons could
press out into the open space, Wallace himself had closed upon them,
and Arnuf, the merciless Arnuf, whose voice had pronounced the sentence
of death upon Sir Ronald Crawford, died beneath his hand.

Wallace was not aware that he had killed the Governor of Ayr till the
terror-struck exclamations of his enemies informed him that the
ruthless instigator of the massacre was slain. This event was welcome
news to the Scots; and hoping that the next death would be that of De
Valence, they pressed on with redoubled energy.

Aroused by so extraordinary a noise, and alarmed by the flames of the
palace, the soldiers quartered near hastened half armed to the spot.
But their presence rather added to the confusion than gave assistance
to the besieged. They were without leaders, and not daring to put
themselves to action, for fear of being afterward punished (in the case