THE SEARCH
Margaret's heart quailed when she hurried out of the room and
followed the men up the stairs. Now, for a certainty, Herman's
prot�g� would fall into the hands of his enemies, and escape seemed
impossible. Her pulse beat high, and despair swept over her, to
think how she was to witness the undoing of one who was striving for
the triumph of the right.
To be caught in a trap like a rat! It was unbearable to think of.
The dulled sound of the footsteps on the carpeted boards of the
stairs seemed to call up a vision of a scene which would ere long be
real--the vision of a prisoner on his trial; condemned in effect by
his judges before he had made his defence, just because he was
William Tyndale. And then the attitude of the crowd that thronged
the market-place where the stake was standing, and Tyndale chained to
it. She could imagine it all, and she could almost hear the babel of
execration against him.
To think of it! A man of such noble mien to be browbeaten and
battered by the screaming mob, cursed, reviled, mud-covered. She
shuddered at the thought, and while the impulse came to follow the
others up the stairs, she hid her face while doing so, and sobbed.
She stood at the top of the stairs and looked around. Here, on her
right hand, was the room into which Herman carried the tired stranger
that night they brought him into the city. On the left was Herman's
chamber. Just beyond it, again, was his mother's. Master Tyndale
must be in one of them.
Captain Berndorf went into Herman's room, followed by the others, and
in a few moments Margaret heard the soldier say roughly:
"Are you here? Come out of it, if you are!"
Resistance would be unavailing, for the Captain's sword was drawn and
ready, gleaming in the lamp-light.
Margaret went into Tyndale's chamber. It was lighted by the lantern
in the street, for the rays came through the rain-splashed window,
and as she stepped in she almost expected to see him sitting
somewhere, or lying on the bed, waiting for the inevitable. Yet,
when she stood well within the place there was a sense of emptiness.
William Tyndale was neither in the bed, nor at the table near the
window.
Was he really gone?
While her keen eyes ranged around she saw a square of whiteness on
the floor, by the table, and went to it quickly, with an instinctive
feeling that it was something which would betray Tyndale, or Herman.
When she bent down and caught it up she knew that it was a printed
sheet. Under it lay another; under that, again, a third. By the dim
light she saw that they were printed folios, and one glance was
sufficient to show her that they were proofs of the New Testament,
such as she had seen in her father's hidden cellar.
She glanced towards the door, wondering whether the soldiers were
there, and had seen that she had some papers in her hand, but the
doorway was clear. Bending her head a little, she saw that the
passage was empty. The men were still in Herman's room.
She thought of the way out of this very real danger with her swift
woman wit, and hastily unbuttoning her dress, she pushed the sheets
into her bosom. It was nothing that they were crumpled. What were
three sheets of printed paper compared to the lives of two men?
To her, as she thrust them in, the papers seemed to make enough noise
to be heard all over the house, for they crinkled in her hands, and
the dampness came on her face lest she had been heard, and they
should ask her what she had been doing.
While she was rapidly buttoning her dress she turned her face to the
window, where the rain came against the glass in heavy gusts, just as
the wind drove it. Below were the soldiers of the City Guard, as
when she saw them last, two lines of silent, unmoving men, with their
halberds gleaming.
The hope sprang in her heart that William Tyndale was really gone.
He was not in Herman's room, or they would have found him. They were
now going into Mistress Bengel's bedroom, and would they find him
there? If not, he could not be in the house, for he was not in this
chamber. Her woman mind showed her what a man might not have
noticed. The bed was not made as if waiting for a sleeper. It was
surprising. Herman's mother had taken away the sheets from the bed,
and it looked as though the room had not been used for a long time
past.
Margaret centred her attention on what might be taking place in that
bedroom, and because the suspense was more than she could endure, she
went to see what they were doing.
The men were there--the three; and it was a strange scene on which
she gazed. Herman was standing aside, his back to the window, where
he could see everything, and Margaret wondered at the expression on
his face. It was something like injured innocence, and, painful
though the tension was, she could not repress a smile when she saw
him watching with the air of a person subjected to the ignominy of
suspicion, and to have his home invaded for the search of a man who
was not there.
The Captain had his sword drawn, and was walking round the room,
looking into the cupboard, and under the bed, and behind the dresses
which hung in a screened-off corner. In all reality serious,
disastrous in its promise, it yet appeared ludicrous and undignified.
The man-at-arms was standing apart, and the look on his face when he
glanced towards Herman intimated that he thought this a fool's
errand, on which they had been sent by some mischief-loving fellow
who wanted to hoax the City Guard. And on such a night! Of late
they had been brought away from the comfortable guard-room for many a
fruitless hunt for this fellow, Tyndale, and this was all of a piece
with the past experience.
The search was fruitless, but the Captain was suspicious of a
hiding-place. Going to the walls, and bidding the soldier do the
same, he began to beat the handle of his sword against the walls.
First resting his halberd in one corner of the room, the man drew a
dagger from his belt and did as his Captain did. He banged on the
wall until the dust began to fly, and the plaster began to drop in
flakes upon the floor. William Tyndale was too big a prize to lose
for the sake of a few bits of mortar. They were sounding for some
hollow place where a man might hide.
"You need not spoil my home like that!" a woman's voice came
unexpectedly, and Herman's mother pushed past Margaret into the room,
and laid her hand on the soldier's wrist, speaking with some
asperity. "I shall appeal to the Burgomaster, and require him to pay
for the repair of this wanton damage."
She wrenched the dagger from the man's hand, and held it out for the
Captain to see. Her eyes were on a picture through which the fellow
had driven his weapon, a picture which had been her dead husband's
handiwork in his hours of leisure.
"Is that how you come to an honest woman's house?" she cried,
swinging round to face the astonished soldier, her eyes flashing, and
her bosom heaving while she thought of this wilful damage done, when
a hand put out to remove the picture would have prevented its ruin.
"I will go to the Burgomaster even now!" she exclaimed, taking down a
heavy cloak from a nail in the corner, and throwing it about her
shoulders, with the dagger still in her hand while she began to tie
the cord at her throat.
The Captain had turned to look at her, the point of his sword held
downwards. He saw the damage that was done, and realised the
reasonableness of the woman's resentment.
"You were over-rough," he exclaimed, looking at the picture. "But,
on the other hand, since we were, told that Master Tyndale would be
found here we must needs miss nothing in our attempt to discover his
whereabouts."
"His whereabouts?" cried Herman's mother, usually so gentle, rarely
other than placid, but now roused by the roughness shown towards what
to her had such holy associations. "Find the man if he is here; but
neither you nor that fellow there shall damage what is precious to
me, since it was my dead husband's work, finished but three days
before he died!"
She sat on the bed, and, burying her face in her hands, wept, and the
two men could do no other than look on her in concern as her sobs
shook her. Margaret stepped forward like Herman, and sought to
comfort her, but the girl's face went hot when she heard the paper in
her bosom crinkle as she put her arms about the weeping woman.
The men stole away into the other room, carrying the lamp with them,
leaving the others in the darkness.
"Is there any danger, Herman?" Margaret asked, drawing her face away
from his mother's, which was wet with tears.
"Not unless they find Tyndale, and they won't do that," said Herman
confidently.
Again they heard the sound of shifting furniture, the slam of a
cupboard door, the tapping of walls, but less roughly; and, after a
while, the soldiers stood in the doorway.
"It is as it has been frequently of late," said the Captain, almost
angrily. "We are being fooled by someone, and could I but lay hands
on the miscreant who sends us on such errands, I would wring his
neck!"
He turned to go away, but paused.
"I am sorry, mistress, the picture was damaged. Send it to Josef
Amon, the picture dealer, and tell him to put it to rights at my
charges."
He moved away, and tramped down the stairs. To make quite sure that
they were not deceived, he and the man with him, and the soldiers who
waited below with their feet in a pool of water which had dripped
from their clothing, passed through the lower room to the yard,
tapping wherever they went.
They were absolutely baffled, for they found nothing which betrayed
the presence of the man they sought, and on whose head there was so
big a price.
The Captain's voice travelled up the stairs.
"Good-night, mistress. Send the picture to Josef Amon."
The street door slammed. A word of command was heard outside, made
tremulous by the gusty wind, and a tramp of soldiers followed,
sounded less and less, and before long was no more heard.
Herman had gone to the window which looked into the street, but when
he returned the candle showed a laughing face. His eyes danced. His
whole frame shook. Laughter conquered him so absolutely that he had
to bury his face in the pillow to deaden the sound, lest someone
might overhear his boisterous mirth.
"Forgive me, mother," he said, in little bursts, when it was possible
to find speech at all. "To think how we did them! Oh, to think of
it!"
He laughed the more, holding his sides because of the pain.
It was then that his mother saw how wet Margaret was, and she stood
up, in concern, wiping her eyes quickly.
"My child, you are soaking. Herman, go downstairs, and I will put
this poor girl into some dry clothes, else she will be chilled to the
bone, and ill may come of it."
Herman was serious in an instant, and went away, and in less than
half an hour Margaret came down with such clothes as Mistress Bengel
could find. Then she told her business.
"Where is Master Tyndale? Has he left the city?" she asked, and set
the soddened note her father sent by her on the table. It was so
limp that the writing on its cover was scarcely readable.
Herman bent down and kissed the puzzled-looking face, and hugged her
fondly, laughing the while.
"Is he gone out of the city?" she asked, because her question had not
been answered.
"Come with me, little woman," said her lover; and, putting his arm
about her, he led her into the front room.
Moving the table when he had made sure that the shutters were safely
closed, and the window so heavily curtained that no one could look in
from the street, Herman cleared the centre of the floor, removed the
carpet, and tossed it in a heap into one of the corners.
"Just a word, little one," he said, before he did more; and he sat
down while he spoke, the better to see his darling's face. "I never
told you, but years ago my father made a discovery when he was
digging for a safe place in which to hide what bit of money he had,
in case of war, and he came across something. You shall see it."
He went on his knees, smiling when he saw Margaret's wide-open eyes.
Taking the knife from his belt, he drove the blade deeply into one of
the boards, and using it as a handle moved the board aside. He moved
the next with his hand, a third, and another also. Asking for a
lamp, he held it over an open space, and looking into the blackness
Margaret exclaimed in surprise.
At her feet were some rough, wooden steps, leading into what seemed
to her a deep well, the bottom of which was not visible. Herman put
a foot on the topmost step, and descended a little space, when he
asked for the lamp.
"Come with me," he said, as she handed it to him, and Margaret
followed without hesitation. Reaching the bottom, step, she found
herself in a chamber about ten feet long, six feet wide, or
thereabouts, and rather more in height. At the farther corner was a
spiral staircase, and when Herman went down with the lamp, and she
followed, she came to another room.
Herman saw her bewildered looks, and explained.
"My father thought it was a stronghold for heretics when, a century
ago, persecution was keener even than now. There were tokens of it
in abundance; but never mind that at present. I'm going to let you
into the secret of Master Tyndale's strange disappearance."
He cried, but not loudly, and to his call there was a hollow return
of the sound.
"Master Tyndale!" he cried again.
"Who is it?" was the response.
"It is I. Herman Bengel."