While he spoke his mouth twitched oddly, but instead of his bursting into the laugh of enjoyment natural to him at the discomfiture of another, his mouth kept on twitching and his eyes staring. “Ye maun hae seen him yersel’ ower my shouther, my lord,” hinted Malcolm. “I saw your face, and that was enough to----” But the marquis did not finish the sentence. “Weel, ’cep it was the oonnaiteral luik o’ the thing--no human, an’ yet sae dooms like it--I can not account for the grue or the trimmle ’at cam ower me, my lord. I never fan’ onything like it i’ my life afore. An’ even noo ’at I unnerstan’ what it is, I kenna what wad gar me luik the boody (_bogie_) i’ the face again.” “Go in at once,” said the marquis fiercely. Malcolm looked him full in the eyes. “Ye mean what ye say, my lord?” “Yes, by God!” said the marquis, with an expression I can describe only as of almost savage solemnity. Malcolm stood silent for one moment. “Do you think I’ll have a man about me that has no more courage than --than--a--woman!” said his master, concluding with an effort. “I was jist turnin’ ower an auld queston, my lord--whether it be lawfu’ to obey a tyrant. But it’s na worth stan’in’ oot upo’. I s’ gang.” He turned to the arch, placed a hand on each side of it, and leaned forward with outstretched neck, peeped cautiously in, as if it were the den of a wild beast. The moment he saw the figure--seated on a stool--he was seized with the same unaccountable agitation, and drew back shivering. “Go in,” shouted the marquis. Most Britons would count obedience to such a command slavish; but Malcolm’s idea of liberty differed so far from that of most Britons, that he felt, if now he refused to obey the marquis, he might be a slave for ever; for he had already learned to recognize and abhor that slavery which is not the less the root of all other slaveries that it remains occult in proportion to its potency--self-slavery:-- he must and would conquer this whim, antipathy, or whatever the loathing might be: it was a grand chance given him of proving his will supreme--that is, himself a free man! He drew himself up, with a full breath, and stepped within the arch. Up rose the horror again, jerked itself towards him with a clank, and held out its hand. Malcolm seized it with such a gripe that its fingers came off in his grasp. “Will that du, my lord?” he said calmly, turning a face rigid with hidden conflict, and gleaming white, from the framework of the arch, upon his master, whose eyes seemed to devour him. “Come out,” said the marquis, in a voice that seemed to belong to some one else. “I hae blaudit yer playock, my lord,” said Malcolm ruefully, as he stepped from the cave and held out the fingers. Lord Lossie turned and left the arbour.