"Lady Ashkirk, your husband spared my life on that unfortunate field. When the Master of Glencairn, with a thousand Douglas lances, forded the Avon, and cut the column of Bardowie to pieces, I had there been slain but for your husband's valour. I owe his memory a debt of gratitude--trust to my kindness. Horses are in waiting to convey you to Leith; and I have orders to see that your household property is every way respected. All lights and fires are to be extinguished--all bolts and bars made fast, and I place my seal upon the doorway." "God be with thee, Alison, and thee, my bonnie Marion. Fare-ye-well, my bairns; and thou, too, Janet, my leal servitor--" "This woman may attend your ladyship." "Sir, I thank you," said the countess, but Janet could only weep, and she did so with great vociferation. The herald took the hand of the countess respectfully; she leaned on the arm of Sybil, the sable page raised her long train, the guards fell back to salute her as she passed, and, amid the sound of lamentation above, below, and around her, she descended the long stone staircase of her mansion, a prisoner. Situated three miles from Leith, in the middle of the Firth of Forth, the ancient tower of Inchkeith (which was demolished in 1567) occupied the summit of that beautiful isle, on a rock one hundred and eighty feet above the water. It was of vast strength and great antiquity, for it was the _Caer Guidi_ of the venerable Bede. Well defended by cannon and a barbican wall, which bore the royal arms of Scotland, it was deemed a place of such importance that the Queen Regent, Mary of Guise, and the French ambassador, John de Montluc, the learned bishop of Valence, paid it a visit twelve years after the date of this our history. Inaccessible on all sides, save one, this island is fertile on its summit, and is watered by many springs that flow from its rocks, which are literally swarming with grey rabbits and fierce Norwegian rats. The night was dark, but guided by a beacon of turf and tar-barrels that blazed on the summit of the tower to direct them (for the cardinal and lord advocate had provided for everything), eight mariners of the admiral Sir Robert Barton's ship pulled sturdily across the broad river towards Inchkeith. Few stars were visible, and a chill wind from the German Sea blew coldly across the broad bosom of the open estuary. The island, with the light gleaming like a red star on its summit, loomed darkly afar off in the distance, and seemed to rise in height at every stroke of the oars. The countess was seated in the stern beside the anxious Albany herald, whose dread of a rescue made him lose no time in executing the orders of the lord advocate.