He
was pale as death. He trembled, but not with dismay only; ten thousand
varying emotions tore his breast. To be thus set up as a monument of
his own defeat, to be threatened with execution by an enemy he had
contemned, to be exposed to such indignities by the unthinking ferocity
of his colleague, filled him with such contending passions of revenge
against friends and foes, that he forgot the present fear of death in
turbulent wishes to deprive of life all by whom he suffered.
Cressingham became alarmed on seeing the retaliating menace of Wallace
brought so directly before his view; and, dreading the vengeance of De
Valence's powerful family, he ordered a herald to say that if Wallace
would draw off his troops to the outer ballium, and the English chief
along with them, the Lord Mar and his family should be taken from their
perilous situation, and he would consider on terms of surrender.
Aware that Cressingham only wanted to gain time until De Warenne should
arrive, Wallace determined to foil him with his own weapons, and make
the gaining of the castle the consequence of vanquishing the earl. He
told the now perplexed governor that he should consider Lord de Valence
as the hostage of safety for Lord Mar and his family, and therefore he
consented to withdraw his men from the inner ballium till the setting
of the sun, at which hour he should expect a herald with the surrender
of the fortress.
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