The Earl remained by the table in the centre, with his hand yet on the plan of the house of his enemy. Sir Thomas was still bending down to look, when all suddenly the glass of the window crashed and a missile came flashing through, thrown by a strong man’s hand. It fell with a ring of iron across the paper that was outspread on the table. It was a dagger heavily hiked with silver. But what thrilled us all with fear was, that the blade of it was red nearly to the hilt, and distilled fresh-dripping blood upon the chart. Then was heard from without something that sounded like a man laughing—but as of a man that had been longtime in hell—and again there came the galloping of a single horse’s feet. The first in all in the house to run to the door was no other than the young lass I had tried to kiss. She flung the door open and ran to a dark, huddled thing, which lay across the paving stones of the little causeway in front of the inn. ’My father—oh, they have slain my father!’ she cried. We that were within also rushed out by the front door, forgetting all else, and filled with dread of what we might see. The dawn was coming red from the east, and there, in the first flush of it, lay Black Peter, plain to be seen, a dark tide sluggishly welling from his side, and his young daughter trying pitifully to staunch it with the bit laced napkin wherewith she had bound her hair to make her pleasant in the men’s eyes. When Peter of the Red Moss saw the Earl, he tried to raise himself upon his elbow from the ground. One feeble hand went waveringly to his head as if to remove his bonnet in the presence of his chief. Cassillis sank on his knees beside him and took the hand. There was a fragment of a leather rein still clasped in it, cut across with a clean, slicing cut. ’Peter, Peter, poor man, who has done this to you?’ he asked. The man that was about to die turned his eyes this way and that. ’My lord, my lord,’ he said, struggling with the choking blood that rose in his throat, ’it was—it was—the grey man—!’ And the Earl listened for more with his ear down to Peter’s mouth, but the spirit of the man who had died for his master ebbed dumbly away without another word. So there was nothing left for us to do but to carry him in, and this we did in the young sunshine of a pleasant morning. And the maid washed and streeked him, moaning and crooning over him piteously, as a dove does that wanteth company. I went, as it happed, into the trance to fetch her a basin of clear water. The top of the meal-ark stood empty! ’My lord—the chest!’ I cried, and all save the maid alone rushed in. The treasure of Kelwood was gone! Without the door, on the trampled clay and mud, there were the steads of naked feet many and small. But of the treasure-chest for which we had ventured so much that night, we saw neither hilt nor hair, clasp nor band.