To think that this great general, this princely noble, the man who alone had baffled the Lion of the North, had been foully murdered by those he had trusted and favoured, filled him with grief and indignation, the more so since two of the principal assassins were Scotchmen.
The thought that on the morrow Duke Bernhard of Weimar--a leader in importance second only to the Chancellor of Sweden--would fall unsuspiciously into the trap set for him goaded him almost to madness, and he tossed restlessly on the straw through the long hours of the night.

Towards morning he heard a faint creaking of bolts, then there was a sound of the locks of the door being turned.

He grasped his sword and sprang to his feet.

He heard the door close again, and then a man produced a lantern from beneath a long cloak, and he saw Wallenstein's steward before him.

The old man's eyes were bloodshot with weeping, and his face betokened the anguish which the death of his master had caused him.
"You have heard the news ?" he asked.
"Alas!" Malcolm replied, "I have heard it indeed." "I am determined," the old man said, "to thwart the projects of these murderers and to have vengeance upon them.