Sholto ate his heart out with uncertainty as to the fate of his sweetheart.

The Lord James chafed at the compulsory confinement and at the consistent ill success which had pursued them.

But Malise, unwearied of limb and ironic of mood as ever, fished upon the tidal flats for brown-spotted flounders and at the rocky points for white fish, often remaining at his task till far into the night.

He constructed snares with a mechanical ingenuity in advance of his age.
And what was worth more to the company than any material help, he kept up the spirits of Sholto and of Lord James Douglas both by his brave heart and merry speech, and still more by constantly finding them something to do.
At the hour of even, one day after they had been a fortnight in the country of Retz, the three Scots were sitting moodily on a little hillock which concealed the entrance to their cave.

The forest lay behind them, an impenetrable wall of dense undergrowth crowned along the distant horizon by the solemn domes of green stone pines.