WITHIN THE CASTLE
The cavalcade halted at the drawbridge, and a horseman sounded a
trumpet which brought a soldier to one of the towers over the gate.
The watchers had gone forward among the trees, keeping pace with the
horses, and now saw and heard all that passed. The soldier demanded
their business, and the response came from Cochlaeus.
"Tell my lord of Schouts that the Deacon of the Church of the Blessed
Virgin wishes to confer with him on a matter of the first importance.
Say that I have ridden out from the city for that purpose."
"Bad hours for a Churchman to keep," the soldier remarked insolently,
and laughing. He waited, to know whether Cochlaeus had more to say,
but, when he found that no answer came, he turned away. More than a
quarter of an hour passed, and then the gate opened slowly, the
portcullis was raised, and the drawbridge dropped over the moat
noisily.
"My lord says that the Deacon of the Church of the Blessed Virgin may
enter," said the warden surlily.
Berndorff, hearing what the soldier said, gave an order, and the
horsemen moved forward. Already the feet of the first two horses
were on the bridge, but the soldier caught at the bridles.
"Nay!" he cried. "I told you that my lord said that the Deacon might
enter. I ought to have said, 'and no other'! All else must stay
outside and cool their toes, or ride away, just as they please. But
as for going in, no!" the soldier exclaimed roughly.
"An insolent varlet!" cried Cochlaeus, riding forward. "Is that how
you speak to a dignitary of the Church?" he asked angrily.
"I speak as my master bids me, and, whether it be insolent or not, I
stand by my orders," was the sharp retort. "These must wait until
your business is done and you come forth again."
Cochlaeus was irresolute. In his own mind there was the fear that he
might be detained by the bandit lord, and held for heavy ransom,
since it was known that the treasure coffer of the Church of the
Blessed Virgin was a full one. Schouts was known among the Churchmen
to care nothing for the maledictions of the Church; and while he may
have thought seriously of armed men standing at his gate in
considerable numbers, he had no fear from such as were in the
community to which Cochlaeus belonged.
"'Tis an insult," he cried angrily.
"That's for my lord to say, not for me," the soldier answered, with
indifference.
"'Tis inhospitable as well," the Inquisitor exclaimed, "not to allow
my attendants shelter at such an hour, but they must stay outside!"
"Where lies the lack of hospitality?" came the curt rejoinder. "You
come hither at your own suggestion, and not as my master's guest.
Would you suppose that he would suffer any to enter his stronghold
who chose to pass this way? He can surely say whom he will see, and
refuse if he cares?"
The soldiers behind Cochlaeus sat grimly in their saddles, but they
understood. Schouts was not likely to admit any armed men who might
prove awkward if once they got across the bridge and held the gate,
keeping it wide open for hundreds to come who might be lurking in the
forest for surprise. And as for Cochlaeus, were it not for their own
honour as soldiers in the service of the Burgomaster of the city,
they would have been well content to see this heretic hunter lying
stark and still on this same bridge to which he had come to parley
with the robber lord.
"What must I do?" Cochlaeus cried angrily, irritated by this
undisguised insolence. It was an intrusion on his dignity which he
would not have brooked elsewhere. But here was a lawless lord's
stronghold, and the master of it was known up and down the river as
one who was a law unto himself, and dictated terms, especially within
his own domain.
"What must you do?" the warden responded in surprise at the question.
"Come in alone, or go away again, just as you may please. I have my
lord's orders, and I won't go from them. Nor dare I. None of these
soldiers, therefore, may enter. My lord will have none of them
inside of his castle. He said so when I took your message to him."
The soldiers on the drawbridge moved their horses back, and stood
with the others, while Cochlaeus, going forward in an ill-humour,
rode in at the dark gateway. Then his temper gave place to fear, for
it dawned upon him that he was placing himself in the power of a man
who might retort on the Church to which he was an inveterate enemy,
and hold this heretic hunter for ransom. His face paled, and his
hand trembled on the rein when the drawbridge began to rise and the
portcullis rushed down, the sound of the loud rattle of chains coming
as a reminder of the helplessness of his position, and how completely
he was in the power of the bandit lord.
"Caught like a rat in a trap, I'll be bound," muttered Otto Engel,
who, like his companions, was watching all that passed, and trying to
gauge how far this night visit of Cochlaeus was likely to affect the
prisoner in the castle. "Ay, like a rat in a trap! God grant he may
never come out alive!" he said, when the gates clanged together.
"But come, friends. Let us be on the move, lest that Inquisitor has
come to buy William Tyndale, and will pay Schouts' price. Then there
is no saving the poor man."
The ranger moved away at a run, winding in and out among the bushes,
leaping over little runlets and brushing through thick undergrowth;
but his comrades kept pace with him, so that when he halted under a
gnarled oak, whose great branches hung so heavily that he had to
stoop to pass beneath them, the others were but a little way behind.
"Is this the place?" Herman asked, bending low to look for Engel, who
was completely hidden.
"Yes. We'll waste no time now we are here," said the ranger. "Stand
there awhile and get your breath," he said to Roye, who was panting
with his run. "I will go first, and what I do you must copy."
Getting a foothold on the trunk of the tree, he climbed among the
foliage and disappeared. Herman could hear him mounting, the rustle
of the branches telling how he was moving.
"Art coming?" Engel asked presently, in a tone which warned the
others to be cautious.
"I'm coming," Herman whispered back, but he turned to Roye. "You had
better go next, then I shall know that you are safe. I am used to
climbing trees, but possibly you are not."
"'Tis true," said the elder man, but he followed Engel, and before
long word came in the darkness that he was safe.
When Herman stood with the others in the great fork, which formed a
natural platform, the ranger dropped on his knees, and felt about in
the darkness with his hand.
When he had found what he wanted, he began to descend into the body
of the tree, the trunk proving to be hollow. The others could hear
the sound of his feet, as though he stepped on iron. The fancy
became reality when Engel produced a light, and while he held a
lantern in his hand, they saw him below, waiting for them to follow.
"Put your feet on those irons, and hold tight with your hands, or you
may get a nasty fall," he whispered, pointing to some iron loops
which had been driven into the inside of the tree, forming what was
equivalent to a ladder. Herman descended, feeling with his feet for
footing as he went, Roye following closely.
Looking around them curiously when they stood in a group, they saw
all manner of insects crawling about, startled by the light and this
unwonted invasion of their domain. Many of them left shiny tracks
behind them, while some insects, attracted by the lantern, flew
against its horny sides.
It was an unpleasant sight, but they had other business on hand, and
they went about it with that quick glance at their surroundings.
Handing the lantern to Herman, the ranger bent down and prodded the
floor with his hunting-knife. At every prod there was an answering
metallic sound.
"That's iron," said Herman, who was watching eagerly.
"Yes. Don't you remember what the plan showed you?" Engel replied.
"Ha! This seems to be what I want."
He had driven his knife into a crevice, and, scraping the earth away,
as he moved along, with the point, he marked out a square space.
Driving in the point of the tempered steel, he raised an iron plate
which worked on hinges, and, getting his hands to it when it had come
a little way, he threw it back against the tree's side, and looked
into a hole, the bottom of which was lost in blackness.
Here, again, were iron clamps by which Engel descended carefully, for
some distance, until his foot touched solid ground. Herman followed
and found himself in a cavernous space.
Gazing around, they found that it was what they expected according to
the plan. Here was a great chamber, low-roofed, and narrowing down
on one side to a passage whose walls gleamed in the light of the
lantern.
The walls were veined in all directions, and the yellow colour
suggested gold; but this was no time for close examination. The
matter in hand was the finding of William Tyndale, to wrest him from
Schouts' harsh keeping before he had time to sell him into the hands
of those for whom Cochlaeus was acting.
"Yonder is the passage," said the ranger, walking the next moment
across the floor with the others so close at his heels that, when he
halted unexpectedly, they bundled against him.
For some distance the passage ran level, narrowing down occasionally,
so that Engel had to turn his burly form sideways and squeeze himself
through; but after a time the floor sloped downwards, and so steeply
at some points that the footing was treacherous. It was made more so
by the moisture which oozed through the rocky ceiling and trickled
down the walls to the ground on which they trod.
"We are under the moat," whispered the ranger, who stumbled while he
carelessly turned to speak, and barely saved himself from a heavy
fall.
Having passed this slimy, moss-covered floor, they found themselves
on an ascending path, and there they paused; for at this point the
real danger of their daring venture began.
"We are inside the castle," whispered Engel. "What say you? Shall
we all go forward, or will you both stay here while I go forward to
see how the land lies?"
"Let us go on farther," Herman proposed. "We ought not to be so far
separated if one of us should choose to stand back. As far as I
remember the plan we have fifty yards or more to go before we reach
the corridor. There is, moreover, a door at the end of the passage,
if the plan is true."
"It's true enough, so far," said Engel, "and why not be correct all
the way through? I've heard my father say so, and he knew, for he
had tried it more than once."
The ranger was moving forward while he spoke, throwing light on the
treacherous path with the lantern.
For more than fifty yards they went their way, touching the slimy
walls at times, and treading on softness they would have shuddered
at, but for this matter on their minds, and of such supreme
importance.
Suddenly they came to a full stop, for a wall was in front of them,
to all appearance solid rock, and impassable. But instead of dismay
there was a stifled sound of satisfaction. It was what the plan had
marked.
Herman began to look about this rocky face, smoothing his hand over
it lightly, but for a time he failed to find what he was searching
for. Then he exclaimed in a tone of satisfaction, just as the fear
was coming that they had been misled:
"I have it!"
He felt a tiny knob of rock, and, pressing on it, the wall began to
move away slowly and heavily, but without a sound. The moment he
took his hand away, the rocky door stood still, leaving a crevice
sufficiently wide for them to peep through.
Hiding the lantern's light so that it should not betray them, they
saw a long passage, three or four feet wide, but almost in darkness.
The only light it contained was that of a smoking lamp hanging on the
wall far down the corridor.
"Shall we venture?" asked the ranger.
"What use was it to come so far, and not go farther?" Roye asked
almost testily. "We have to get my master out of this."
While he spoke he put out his hand and pressed the door farther open.
Then, brushing past the others, he stood in the passage. Engel and
Herman followed. Thrusting the door back into its place, careful not
to send it too far, for the latch to catch, they looked at it in such
dim light as there was, and saw that it fitted into the roughly built
wall so well that none would suspect the presence of a door when
thrust back completely. It was clear to them that it was a secret
entrance and exit, the existence of which had probably been forgotten.
"Now for the next thing," said the ranger, glancing up and down the
passage anxiously. "Put your minds on that plan in my home, and you
will remember we had to take the first turning to the left. It comes
half-way between us here and that light yonder."
He led the way, going softly and cautiously, ready for advance or
retreat, as things might chance. Ere many yards had been traversed
they came to an opening on the left, and it led up some winding
steps, past doorways from none of which came any sound or sign of
life or light on the other sides. The stairway opened on a long
corridor, broad and pretentious. Some of the doorways had heavy
curtains hanging over them, and one into which they peered, since the
door was wide open, showed the great banqueting-hall, with tapestries
on the walls, casques and bucklers, antlers, and many other relics of
the chase in the forest. Across the hall at the upper end ranged the
high table at which the lord of the castle sat, and the other tables
ran down by the walls, leaving the central space clear.
To linger was dangerous, and yet the nearer way to Tyndale's cell lay
through the hall.
"I'll not venture," Engel muttered, listening intently for any sound
of approaching voices or footsteps, and realising, like the others,
that in this escapade they were almost challenging death. "We'll go
round, for who can tell what men may come into the place when we are
half-way across the floor of that hall? We should never get to
yonder door, nor any other door, except a dungeon one."
He turned away, hugging the wall as he went, and always keeping an
eye on the hanging curtains at the doors. His idea was that, if
someone came into the passage, he and his comrades in this deadly
venture might get into hiding until the danger had passed.
Every sound thrilled them, for the peril was so great. And yet they
moved onwards, bent on getting Tyndale away, if it were possible.
After a time they came to a corner, and glanced along another
corridor shut off with heavy hangings.
Should they venture? There was no hiding-place nearer than a doorway
a dozen yards farther on. And here Engel knew his way thoroughly,
for, being hail-fellow-well-met with many of the retainers, he had
often been there, and was always welcome. He knew that if he could
pass that door in safety he had but one more to go beyond, and he
would be at the steps which descended to the place where, so Sprenkel
had told him when they met in the forest in the afternoon, the
prisoner had been placed.
The danger centred at that door, and Engel half wished he had come
alone, so that his movements should not be hampered. One could move
where three would find it impossible and dangerous.
"Roye," he whispered, while they were hidden in the curtain, "one can
move freely, and perhaps two; but three are too many. It adds so
greatly to the fear of discovery. What say you to going back to the
secret door and staying in the passage, keeping everything in
readiness when we bring William Tyndale with us?"
"Is there likely to be any fighting? for, if so, I can do my share,"
said Roye readily.
"There will be no fighting. It's a matter of stealth, and three are
too many. One may blunder and spoil everything. We shall all be
waiting for each other."
"I'll go back, but not willingly," came the reluctant response. "I
wanted greatly to be one of those to go to my master, but I see the
difficulty."
Roye turned on his heel.
"Can you find the way?" Engel whispered; and Roye, answering quickly,
went back softly. They watched him until he disappeared at the steps.
"He's brave enough," the ranger said sincerely, "and I like the man's
spirit. There's no doubt as to the love he has for his master, and
he's sore at heart at turning back. But three are too many."
Engel and Herman made a hurried progress down the dimly-lit corridor,
making for one of the doors, but they hid themselves among some
curtains almost in panic, for a page-boy came into view at one of the
corners, whistling gaily as he walked along carelessly. He passed
on, unsuspecting, not even looking at the heavy curtains.
As for those in hiding, they almost forgot the boy in the intensity
of their surprise at what they saw. From among the folds in which
they stood, they looked into a gorgeous chamber, and at the table, in
the centre, so seated that the flaming logs upon the hearth lit up
their faces, making the lights of the candles dim with the red glow,
were two men.
One was Schouts, the robber lord. The other was Cochlaeus. Both had
wine goblets by their hand, and were talking seriously.