“Hold there!” he said in an undertone.  “Remember it is as I said.  This woman, though we have no cause to love her, is now our only hope.  Her words brought us here.  They were true words, and I believe that she comes as a friend.  I will stake my life on it.”

“Or if she comes as an enemy we are no worse off,” grumbled sceptical Malise.  “We can at least encourage the woman and then hold her as an hostage.”

The three Scots were standing to receive their guest when the Lady Sybilla rode up.  Her face had lost none of the pale sadness which marked it when Sholto last saw her, and though the look of utter agony had passed away, the despair of a soul in pain had only become more deeply printed upon it.

The girl having acknowledged their salutations with a stately and well-accustomed motion of the head, reached a hand for Sholto to lift her from her palfrey.

Then, still without spoken word, she silently seated herself on the grey-lichened rock rudely shaped into the semblance of a chair, on which Malise had been sitting at his mending.  The strange maiden looked long at the blue sea deepening in the notches of the sand dunes beneath them.  The three men stood before her waiting for her to speak.  Each of them knew that lives, dearer and more precious than their own, hung upon what she might have to say.

At last she spoke, in a voice low as the wind when it blows its lightest among the trees: 

“You have small cause to trust me or to count me your friend,” she said; “but we have that which binds closer than friendship—­a common enemy and a common cause of hatred.  It were better, therefore, that we should understand one another.  I have never lost sight of you since you came to this fatal land of Retz.  I have been near you when you knew it not.  To accomplish this I have deceived the man who is my taskmaster, swearing to him that in the witch crystal I have seen you depart.  And I shall yet deceive him in more deadly fashion.”

Sholto could restrain himself no longer.

“Enough,” he said roughly; “tell us whether the maidens are alive, and if they are abiding in this Castle of Machecoul.”

The Lady Sybilla did not remove her eyes from the red west.

“Thus far they are safe,” she said, in the same calm monotone.  “This very hour I have come from the White Tower, in which they are confined.  But he whom I serve swears by an oath that if you or other rescuers are heard of again in this country, he will destroy them both.”

She shuddered as she spoke with a strong revulsion of feeling.

“Therefore, be careful with a great carefulness.  Give up all thought of rescuing them directly.  Remember what you have been able to accomplish, and that your slightest actions will bring upon those you love a fate of which you little dream.”

“After what we remember of Crichton Castle, how can we trust you, lady?” said Malise, sternly.  “Do you now speak the truth with your mouth?”