Burley, only altered from what he had been formerly by the addition of a grisly beard, stood in the midst of the cave, with his clasped Bible in one hand, and his drawn sword in the other. His figure, dimly ruddied by the light of the red charcoal, seemed that of a fiend in the lurid atmosphere of Pandemonium, and his gestures and words, as far as they could be heard, seemed equally violent and irregular. All alone, and in a place of almost unapproachable seclusion, his demeanour was that of a man who strives for life and death with a mortal enemy. "Ha! ha!--there--there!" he exclaimed, accompanying each word with a thrust, urged with his whole force against the impassible and empty air, "Did I not tell thee so?--I have resisted, and thou fleest from me!--Coward as thou art, come in all thy terrors; come with mine own evil deeds, which render thee most terrible of all,--there is enough betwixt the boards of this book to rescue me!--What mutterest thou of grey hairs? It was well done to slay him,--the more ripe the corn, the readier for the sickle.-- Art gone? Art gone?--I have ever known thee but a coward--ha! ha! ha!" With these wild exclamations he sunk the point of his sword, and remained standing still in the same posture, like a maniac whose fit is over. "The dangerous time is by now," said the little girl who had followed; "it seldom lasts beyond the time that the sun's ower the hill; ye may gang in and speak wi' him now. I'll wait for you at the other side of the linn; he canna bide to see twa folk at anes." Slowly and cautiously, and keeping constantly upon his guard, Morton presented himself to the view of his old associate in command. "What! comest thou again when thine hour is over?" was his first exclamation; and flourishing his sword aloft, his countenance assumed an expression in which ghastly terror seemed mingled with the rage of a demoniac. "I am come, Mr. Balfour," said Morton, in a steady and composed tone, "to renew an acquaintance which has been broken off since the fight of Bothwell Bridge." As soon as Burley became aware that Morton was before him in person,--an idea which he caught with marvellous celerity,--he at once exerted that mastership over his heated and enthusiastic imagination, the power of enforcing which was a most striking part of his extraordinary character. He sunk his sword-point at once, and as he stole it composedly into the scabbard, he muttered something of the damp and cold which sent an old soldier to his fencing exercise, to prevent his blood from chilling. This done, he proceeded in the cold, determined manner which was peculiar to his ordinary discourse:-- "Thou hast tarried long, Henry Morton, and hast not come to the vintage before the twelfth hour has struck. Art thou yet willing to take the right hand of fellowship, and be one with those who look not to thrones or dynasties, but to the rule of Scripture, for their directions?" [Illustration: Morton and Black Linn--272]