"I fear I have slain a man--or, mayhap, more than one," he said; "but these, my friends, have had no part in the quarrel. They but assisted me to fight my way out."
"Your name and regiment, sir?" said the officer in charge, civilly enough.
"I am Walter Gordon, captain in Douglas's regiment of Dragoons," replied Walter, readily enough.
"Let Captain Gordon be taken to the military prison and there kept in the safest cell," interrupted the clear, high voice of Barra. He had entered unobserved, having followed the patrol along the street. The officer of the night saluted the high councillor of the prince and present provost-marshal of the camp and city of Amersfort.
Walter was therefore promptly delivered to the officer and file who had been sent to escort him, and in a moment he went out with them into the night.
"Were they souljers or civilians ye murthered, for sure?" asked the officer, as they marched along the street. He spoke the pleasant tongue of Ireland in a soft, far-reaching whisper.
"Townsfolk," returned Wat; "all except one hulking scoundrel of a provost-marshal's man!"
"More power to ye," said the Irishman, promptly. "Give me the grip of your hand--and, by my sowl, I'll give ye a chance to run for it at the next corner."
But Wat declined the obliging offer of the good-hearted Irishman.
"I thank you with all my heart," he said. "It is kindly meant. But I prefer to stand my trial. Things can't be worse with me than they are!"
"Faith, it's you that knows, my son," said the Irishman; "but to Patrick Ryan's thinking a long hempen necktie, swung elegantly over a beam, might make things a deal worse for ye!"
And in a minute more the iron gate of the military prison of Amersfort had shut-to upon Wat Gordon.
Barra and Will Gordon returned together to the lodgings in the street of Zaandpoort. There was a sinister look of inexpressible triumph on the dark face of my Lord of Barra. When they reached home Will Gordon threw himself silently, face downward, on the oak settle; for there arose in his heart the memory of those days, not so long ago, when he and Wat had slept under one plaid among the heather on the moors of Scotland. And the tears stood in his eyes for the thing which he had seen that night.