After ransacking the principal rooms and taking all that was valuable,
the band of marauders lifted the still insensible body of Walter, and
carrying it downstairs flung it across a horse. One of the ruffians
mounted behind it, and the others also getting into their saddles, the
party rode away.
They were mistaken, however, in supposing that the Lady Edith was dead.
She was indeed very nigh the gates of death, and had it not been for the
disturbance would assuredly have speedily entered them. The voice of
her husband raised in anger, the clash of steel, followed by the heavy
fall, had awakened her dazed senses.
Consciousness had at once partly returned to her, but as yet no power of
movement. She had heard the words of those who entered her chamber as if
they were spoken afar off.
More and more distinctly she heard their movements about the room, but
it was not until silence was restored that she came to herself
completely. Then with a sudden rush the blood seemed to course through
her veins, her eyes opened, and her tongue was loosed, and with a scream
she sprang up and stood by the side of her bed.
She hurried into the next room. A pool of blood on the floor showed her
that what she had heard had not been a dream. Snatching up a cloak of
her husband's which lay on a couch, she wrapped it round her, and with
hurried steps made her way along the passages until she reached the
apartment occupied by Ralph. The latter sprang up in bed with a cry of
astonishment.
He had heard but an hour before from Walter that all hope was gone, and
thought for an instant that the figure he saw was an apparition from the
dead. The ghastly pallor of the face, the eyes burning with a strange
light, the wild hair and disordered appearance of the lady might well
have alarmed one living in even less superstitious times. Ralph was
beginning to cross himself hastily and to mutter a prayer, when he was
recalled to himself by the sound of Edith's voice.
"Quick, Ralph!" she said, "arise and clothe yourself. Hasten for your
life. My lord's enemies have fallen upon him and wounded him
grievously, even if they have not slain him, and have carried him away.
They would have slain me also had they not thought I was already dead.
Arise and mount, summon everyone still alive in the village, and follow
these murderers. I will pull the alarm-bell of the castle."
Ralph sprang from his bed as Edith left. He had heard the sound of many
footsteps in the knight's apartments, but had deemed them those of the
priest come to administer the last rites of the church to his dying
mistress. Rage and anxiety for his master gave strength to his limbs.
He threw on a few clothes and rushed down to the stables, where the
horses stood with great piles of forage and pails of water before them,
placed there two days before by Walter when their last attendant died.
Without waiting to saddle it Ralph sprang upon the back of one of the
animals, and taking the halters of four others started at a gallop down
to the village.