CHAPTER VI_Dick Chester

DICK AND GILES DRAW LOTS

Giles bound up the Puritan's wounds first, and gave him some wine,

laying him on a settle by the kitchen fire. He revived a little, but

Giles saw very soon that he was dying. Dick had conceived the idea

that Giles would torture the trooper to gain information. Master

Purvis had told him how they treated Guy Fawkes, and what a part the

boot and the thumb-screw had played in similar cases. But Giles, on

being questioned, said his taste did not run to displays of that

kind, and Dick felt relieved, he scarcely knew why.

Giles was wounded in the leg, but only slightly, the ball having

passed through the flesh without injuring the bone. He bound it up,

and then they drank to the King. The Puritan's face twisted in a

grim smile.

"I'm dying," he said slowly. "To-day me, to-morrow thee."

"Scarcely so soon, I trust," Giles said, fixing a keen eye on the

speaker.

"Within the week," the man said.

Giles gave him more wine.

"We are courageous," he said, smiling, "for your people can't get

into Dent. In a day, or two days, there will come our own fellows.

Up will be crumpled your psalm-singing friends yonder. Within a week

we shall have the King here at Dent."

The Puritan, strengthened by the wine, tried to lift himself to his

feet, but fell back again. He had only power to shake his fist at

Giles.

"Your King," he said, "is six miles off, at Lumley. Can he hear when

you call him? He'll hear the guns that shall shatter these doomed

walls, I tell you."

He stopped. Again Giles gave him wine, but he refused it.

"Your people have no guns to shatter our walls with," Giles said

sternly, bending over him, and, it seemed to Dick, anxiously waiting

for something the trooper might add.

"Within a week," said the man almost inaudibly. "To-day me,

to-morrow thee."

Giles paused a moment, and then asked Dick to go up on the leads and

see what the enemy were doing.

"Don't come back. I'll be with you in a few moments," he said.

At the end of a quarter of an hour he came up to him, and told him

that the Puritan soldier was dead.

"We must bury him in the court, Dick, where there are no flags, and

the grass grows."

So they went down and dug him a grave. Giles bore out the Puritan

wrapped in a cloak, laid him in the ground, and they shovelled in the

earth over him silently. Then Giles asked for a prayer-book, which

Dick, wondering, found him; and Giles, standing at the foot of the

new grave, bareheaded, in his fluttering rags, read the prayers from

the burial service.

"Perhaps he would have preferred one of his own people to do it, but

I've done my best, Dick," said he at the end; "and I dare say he did

his."

When they were sitting on the leads in the late evening-light, Dick

observed that Giles was silent, preoccupied, absent, not at all

himself.

"Giles," he said, and his companion started.

"I'm thinking, Dickie," he said. "Will you favour me with your views

on the state of the case at this juncture?"

Giles turned over and lay full-length on the leads, his chin in his

hands, and his eyes fixed on the boy.

Dick did not reply to the question, not quite understanding it, but

he said: "Methinks, Giles, that we took a great deal of trouble this

morning for naught."

"'Naught' being our friend under the earth there," Giles suggested,

waving his hand towards the court.

"He was no good to us," Dick said.

"Was he not?" Giles said, smiling. "Within a week, he said, we

should be dead. He called our walls doomed. He prophesied that His

Majesty would hear the guns that shattered Dent. He was good enough

to inform us, if you will bend your mind to consider his words,

Captain,--he was good enough to inform us that his people had sent

for artillery; and he was good enough to add, also, that His Majesty

was six miles off, at Lumley. Why, Dick, if we'd learnt all that

from a letter, how grateful we'd have been to the man who brought it

to us. Prithee, don't scorn it because I acted as bearer."

Dick looked at Giles solemnly. "What a wonderful man you are,

Giles!" he said simply.

"Thanks," said Giles, bowing his head. "The thing is, how shall we

act in the matter? We want to know if Dent is worth holding--if His

Majesty wants it. How shall we learn?"

Dick shook his head blankly. "We cannot," he said.

"Oh, tush, my dear fellow!" said Giles scornfully. "Let us think."

And he thought, with his eyes fixed on the moon rising over Dick's

head. Dick thought too, and was the first to come to a solution of

the riddle.

"Giles, you were writing a letter to the King--once--in the

gate-house--you remember. Someone must carry it to the King quickly."

"First fix on the someone," advised Giles.

"There's only me and you," Dick said breathlessly.

"We'll draw lots," Giles said; "for the reasons for each of us to go

and stay are just equal. You are the Captain of Dent, and should

stay by the castle. You are the least observable of us, and

therefore should go. I might do it swifter, so should go; but there

are other reasons why I should stay."

He did not state the reasons, the chief of which was that, if help

did not come before the Puritan artillery, the one remaining in Dent

would be taken and shot. Dick's youth might have been his safeguard;

but still, Giles would rather he were safe out of the way.

A little tuft of grass was growing in a cranny of the stone coping,

and Giles plucked two blades.

"These two blades are us, Dick," he said; "the little one's you, and

the big one's me."

He turned and placed them between his finger and thumb, concealing

the ends.

"Now, draw," he said, holding his hand out to Dick.

Dick suddenly felt a wild thrill of excitement, and a tightening of

the throat as if he would choke. On the one side he saw himself

alone in the great world without the walls, seeking his sovereign,

every tree and hedge hiding an enemy. On the other, he saw himself

alone in the great empty castle of Dent, fearing at every sunrise the

sight of advancing artillery, and dreading to hear the thunder of

guns in the darkness of every night.

"Draw, draw," said Giles, smiling down at him. "Now!"

Dick drew one of the narrow green blades, biting his lip hard as he

did so.

Giles opened his hand and looked at the one he still held. "The long

one stays," he said. "Dick, it is you."

They had risen for this solemn business, but now they sat down side

by side. Giles was relieved, and Dick felt, now that the choice was

made for him, that he would have been disappointed had it turned out

otherwise.

"No time to lose," said Giles cheerily.

And Dick said excitedly: "Tell me what I shall do. Shall I go

to-night? Giles, they'll see us let down the bridge. If they take

me, what must I do with the letter?"

"We'll have no letter, Dick," said Giles, stemming the questions.

"'Tisn't safe; 'tisn't needed. Now, hearken!"

Giles explained what the messenger must do. He must go out that

night, but not till late, for the moon shone on the wrong side for

them yet. When the back of Dent was in shadow, Dick must climb out

by the little window in the buttery--Giles would take out the bars.

Dick must then swim the moat, as Giles knew he was quite equal to

doing in moments of excitement. (Dick laughed guiltily at that.) He

must then put on a dry suit, for fear the damp and the night air

together crippled him with an ague before he reached Lumley. Before

he swam across the moat he was to hurl a bundle of clothes to the