It was then, as one by one advanced, the king for the first time missed his brother Nigel and the heir of Buchan; amidst the overwhelming bitterness of thought which had engrossed him, he had for a brief while forgotten the precarious situation of Alan, and the determination of Nigel to seek and save, or die with him; but now the recollection of both rushed upon him, and the flush which his eloquence had summoned faded at once, and the sudden expression of anguish passing over his features roused the attention of all who stood near him.
"They must have fallen," he murmured, and for the first time, in a changed and hollow voice.

"My brother, my brother, dearest, best! can it be that, in thy young beauty, thou, too, art taken from me ?--and Alan, how can I tell his mother--how face her sorrow for her son ?" Time passed, and there was no sound; the visible anxiety of the king hushed into yet deeper stillness the voices hushed before.

His meaning was speedily gathered from his broken words, and many mounted the craggy heights to mark if there might not yet be some signs of the missing ones.

Time seemed to linger on his flight.

The intervening rocks and bushes confined all sounds within a very narrow space; but at length a faint unintelligible noise broke on the stillness, it came nearer, nearer still, a moment more and the tread of horses' hoofs echoed amongst the rocks--a shout, a joyful shout proclaimed them friends.