"Dost hear, lad?
You have the choice whether you will be cook to a band of honourable gentlemen or be shot at once." "The choice pleases me not," Malcolm replied.

"Still, if it must needs be, I would prefer for a time the post of cook to the other alternative." "And mind you," the leader said sharply, "at the first attempt to escape we string you up to the nearest bough.

Carl, do you lead him back and set him to work, and tell the men there to keep a sharp watch upon him." One of the men turned his horse, and, with Malcolm walking by his side, left the party.

They soon turned aside from the road, and after a ride of five miles across a rough and broken country entered a wood.

Another half mile and they reached the foot of an eminence, on the summit of which stood a ruined castle.