“I am glad indeed I am in time, Captain Graheme; we have ridden without drawing rein since your messenger arrived at four o'clock this morning.” “Thanks indeed, Captain Burgh,” Malcolm replied. “Your coming is most welcome; though I think we have given the peasants so hot a lesson that they would not have attacked us again, and by tightening our waistbelts we could have held on for another three or four days.” “I see that you have punished them heavily,” the Swedish officer said, looking round at the bodies; “but what was the explosion I heard?” “You will see its signs behind the tower,” Malcolm said as he led the way there. “They tried to blow us up, but burnt their own fingers.” The scene behind the tower was ghastly. Some thirty peasants lay with their clothes completely burned from their bodies, the greater portion of them dead, but some still writhing in agony. Malcolm uttered an exclamation of horror. “It were a kindness to put these wretches out of their misery,” the Swede said, and dismounting he passed his sword through the bodies of the writhing men. “You know I am in favour of carrying on the war as mercifully as may be,” he continued turning to Malcolm, “for we have talked the matter over before now; and God forbid that I should strike a fallen foe; but these poor wretches were beyond help, and it is true mercy to end their sufferings.” “They have had a heavy lesson,” Malcolm said; “there are eleven more dead up in the belfry, which they tried to carry by storm, and a dozen at least crushed by stones. “You and your three men have indeed given a good account of yourselves,” Captain Burgh exclaimed; “but while I am talking you are fasting. Here is a bottle of wine, a cold chicken, and a manchet of bread which I put in my wallet on starting; let us breakfast, for though I do not pretend to have been fasting as you have, the morning ride has given me an appetite. I see your fellows are hard at work already on the viands which my orderly brought for them in his havresack; but first let us move away to the tree over yonder, for verily the scent of blood and of roasted flesh is enough to take away one's appetite, little squeamish as these wars have taught us to be.”