"Desist, young men!" continued he, "provoke me not beyond my bearing.
With a single blast of my bugle I could surround this building with a
band of warriors, who at sight of their chief being thus assaulted,
would lay this tumult in blood. Let me pass, or abide the consequence!"
"Through my breast, then," exclaimed Badenoch; "for, with my consent,
you pass not here but on your bier. What is in the arm of a single
man," cried he to the lords, "that ye cannot fall on him at once, and
cut him down?"
"I would not hurt a son of the virtuous Badenoch," returned Wallace;
"but his life be on your hands," said he, turning to the chiefs, "if
one of you point a sword to impede my passage."
"And wilt thou dare it, usurper of my powers and honors?" cried
Badenoch. "Lorn, stand by your friend-all here who are true to the
Cummin and Macdougal, hem in the tyrant."
Many a traitor hand now drew forth its dagger, and the intemperate
Badenoch, drunk with choler and mad ambition, snatching a sword from
one of his accomplices, made another violent plunge at Wallace, but its
metal flew in splinters on the guard-stroke of the regent, and left
Badenoch at his mercy.
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