"I must live--I must live--oh, yes, I must, for vengeance!" he yelled; for, coward as he was, he felt that he could have died happy, if, by so doing, he could destroy Roland Vipont and Jane Seton--yea, and his master too, who had sent him on an errand so fatal in its termination. While some of the soldiers were burying the dead, and others were tracing the horses to the artillery, the poisoned ruffian ran wildly to a solitary part of the river, where he threw himself on his face, and imbibed an inordinate draught of cold water--drinking, drinking, drinking--as if he was a mere hollow pipe. Loosening his waist-belt, and untying the points of his doublet, he stooped and drank deeply again, burying his face in the water until his distended stomach felt swollen as if to bursting, and when he arose the whole landscape swam around him. Then, selecting the branch of a tree, he clambered up to it with the utmost difficulty, for he had turned himself into a mere water barrel. Then, in a horror of anxiety--for every moment wasted seemed an eternity--he tied his ankles to the branch, and lowering his body perpendicularly till his hands rested on the turf, he remained suspended, head downwards, in the hope that, with the ocean of water he had drunk, he might disgorge the frightful poison he had been compelled to swallow. But long before this hideous operation was over, Roland Vipont, Leslie, and their soldiers, with the royal banners displayed, and their bright armour gleaming in the sun, were marching down the pastoral valley, on their route to Edinburgh, having now traversed the whole dale of the Douglas without discovering the Earl of Ashkirk. "Now, fare ye well, Lanarkshire, and welcome the dun summit of Arthur's Seat," thought Roland; as, full of the most brilliant anticipations of happiness, he spurred his gallant horse and patted its arching neck. "In three days I will be with my dear Jeanie; and, in a month from this, whether the king sayeth yea or nay, she shall be my winsome bride!" CHAPTER XXIX. THE SECOND VISIT. "Give me again my innocence of soul; Give me my forfeit honour blanched anew; Cancel my treasons to my royal master; Restore me to my country's lost esteem, To the sweet hope of mercy from above, And the calm comforts of a virtuous heart." _Edward the Black Prince_. The soothing or sleeping draught had been duly administered by Tib Trotter, and Jane Seton slept.