If his disappearance remained utterly unaccounted for, and his death became--as of course it would be--a thing of the past, and forgotten even by those to whom he was dear, might not Hawke Holcroft regain such influence as he had ever possessed over Olive and make her his own? She would be free then; there would be no obstacle, and no other rendering of the will necessary, now that _he_ was removed. Never again to see her face or the faces of those he loved and who loved him so; to die a rat's death, within arm's length of them almost! Could his ancestor have foreseen, when he formed this infernal trap, that one of his own race was to perish therein, and thus! After a time, amid all this tangle of terrible thoughts, he began to forget where he was; his senses partly left him; he believed himself to be with the regiment--the Black Watch, with their dark tartans and historic crimson plumes; he heard the crash of the drums, the braying of the pipes, and saw many familiar faces around him, those of Cameron and Carslogie among others. Now the regiment was going into action; he saw the line forming, the eyes of the men lighting grimly up as they loaded, and the sunshine flashed upon the ridges of levelled steel. The dream seemed a palpable one, and, with a shout louder than he thought he could utter, he called upon them to follow him in the charge! His own cry awoke or roused him; the glorious vision of the charging line melted into opaque darkness, and now Allan found himself weaker than ever. He thought all was nearly over with him now. He turned his thoughts to prayer, ere it might be too late, and from pondering on release and vengeance and the things of this life, he began to think, as his powers ebbed, of the life to come. He felt that he must resign himself to the inevitable, and to die--to die there after all, and at last he became totally insensible. CHAPTER VI. CEAD MILLE MALOCH! The shout uttered by Allan in his delirium had not been uttered in vain. It chanced that Mr. Tappleton, the silver-haired old butler, who had been custodier of the wine binns and the massive old plate in its iron-bound chest, since the present Lord Aberfeldie was a baby in long clothes, had entered his dusty and cobwebbed repositories, and was seeking through their stone shelves for some fine old crusted port of a peculiar vintage, kept alone for the use of his master and himself, when the cry of Allan and some other strange sounds reached his ears, as he thought, and seriously startled him. We say he thought, for the recess of his wine binns was an unlikely place to hear any other sound than that made by a scared rat.