How they tore through the black night; what unguarded weak spot they found in Ian's castle walls; how they fought their way through it, leaving their dead bodies in the path, none really ever knew.

By what strange chance Dark Malcolm came upon Wee Brown Elspeth, craftily set to playing hide-and-seek with a child of Ian's so that she might not cry out and betray her presence; how, already wounded to his death, he caught at and drove his dirk into her child heart, the story only offers guesses at.

But kill and save her he did, falling dead with her body held against his breast, her brown hair streaming over it.

Not one living man went back to the small, rude castle on the Glen--not one.
I sat and read and read until the room grew dark.

When I stopped I found that Angus Macayre was standing in the dimness at the foot of the ladder.