CHAPTER XV

A DARING DECISION

The sun had been up for some time before any of the sleepers began to stir, and when Otto Engel stretched himself and yawned, and, doing so, awoke the others, he had no sense of shame for being a laggard with the day so far run on. It was his custom to sleep away so many of the hours of daylight, for he was very much of what he called himself--a night-bird, who must needs walk about his business while the world was sleeping. That night wandering was a part of his duty as ranger of the forest.

"I'll get you some breakfast," was his first word, when Herman sat up and stared around, wondering where he was; and before long the three men and the dog were eating what for two of them was a late morning meal.

"I think I'll find my way home," said Herman, who was depressed and ate but sparingly. Roye, too, sat playing absent-mindedly with his bread.

"Nay, you must stay here to-day, if anything is to be done to help William Tyndale," the ranger cried, tossing down his knife and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, while he shifted back his stool to cross his knee.

"How can we help Master Tyndale?" Roye asked gloomily.

"I'll tell you before the day is gone; but the thing wants a deal of consideration. If you care to stay, you are more than welcome, and, what is more to the point, your assistance will be valuable. Whatever I may decide, I won't be able to do anything single-handed. I know that much, so that William Tyndale's largely in your hands."

Herman watched the stalwart forester.

"What do you think is possible?" he asked.

"I don't know any more than the man in the moon, as people say. I shall have to think the thing out. My real idea is to get William Tyndale out of the hands of Schouts, if you must know, and cheat Cochlaeus as well. So now you know.

"Lie by, and don't show yourselves," he added, looking to his belt to see that he had his weapons there.

By this time Engel was standing at the door, with the dog at his heels ready for duty with his master. "When I have thought this thing well through I will come back and talk it over with you. It may be a couple of hours. It may be a great deal more. But I'll come, and if you are here, so much the better. Burn it into your mind, Herman Bengel, and you, William Roye, that we are going to get Master Tyndale out of that devil's den."

He went out, pulling the door after him noisily, and walked down the foot-beaten track. He halted before he had gone many yards, and, returning, opened the door again.

"Help yourselves to food when you feel hungry," he said, standing in the entrance with his hand on the latch. "There's no need for stint, since the larder's full enough. I may be away some time, for, if you don't mind, I'll take that horse back, and set him adrift in the field where you found him. It would be awkward for me if they found him in my stable. Shall I do that?"

Herman nodded.

The forester had more to say.

"Put the bolts in the door to keep intruders out. I don't want any of my friends yonder to come and find you here." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the castle. "They come sometimes for a chat, and so I get to know things. If any of them come, keep quiet, and don't open the door. They'll think I'm on my rounds."

He stalked away to the stable, and Herman, as soon as he saw him ride past the window on the borrowed horse, drove in the bolt.

The hours went slowly, and to those who were shut up in the forest hut, compelled to be idle, they seemed interminable. They talked over the possibilities at which Otto Engel had hinted so confidently, but in the slow passing of the hours they began to grow hopeless over Tyndale's affairs. They speculated as to what the forester might be able to do, but their own memory of the drawbridge and portcullis, and the armed men on the walls, drove them to the conclusion that his scheme was a wild and impossible one.

Again and again Herman went to the window, and looked out to the forest, hoping to see the forester, but there was no sign of his coming. He saw the giant trees rearing their proud heads to the sun, which at some spots found its way on the pathways and undergrowth. Some wild boars rushed by at odd intervals, and a dark-grey, grizzled lynx chased a poor creature among the branches, or dropped to the earth on an unsuspecting victim. It served to pass the time to watch from the window all that went on in the forest--the wolves that passed, or a bear that shambled along, but halted at an ant-hill to scrape out the nests and lap up the eggs.

But the all-absorbing matters were those two--the rescue of William Tyndale, and Margaret, who in less than a week was to be his wife. He shivered at the thought of her journey through the cavern, with its loneliness and those tokens of death from which she had shrunk even in his company. What must she have felt when she was moving in the cavern alone?

The hours went on--the longest he had ever spent. The morning passed. The sun changed his position, and cast long, slanting shadows, and presently the afternoon began to grow old. Then evening came, and the forester had not returned.

They began to be anxious for his safety, and fears of many sorts were talked about. Had he shot some wild creature, and in the brute's agony had he been mauled and torn? The anxiety became so great, when the shadows grew dense and night was falling, that Herman drew the bolt, intending to go out and search for the absent man; but Roye, as much distressed, but cautious, dissuaded him.

At last they heard the heavy stamp of feet on the path outside, and then the scratch of a dog's paws on the door. Herman's hand went to the bolt, but he waited for another sign, and when Engel spoke quietly and lifted the latch he opened the door.

"I put the horse back in the meadow!" the forester exclaimed, lowering himself stiffly on a stool, but he had barely done so when he straightened himself and went to the cupboard to get food for himself and the dog.

"Sit down," cried Herman. "I'll do that."

"I've got to the bottom of my scheme," said the tired man, glad to be seated. "I'll tell you all about it as soon as I find myself in front of food. But we'll see to the dog first," he added, the moment Herman set the meat on the table.

"I've found a way for getting William Tyndale out of that robber's den, so that we shall surprise both Schouts and Cochlaeus, and spoil their plans!" Otto Engel exclaimed, his mouth full. He was eating ravenously, for he and the dog had gone all the day without food. In his wanderings he had threshed out that difficult problem of deliverance. "I can see my way, and we'll have him out of it before I'm very much older," he added, when he had swallowed a draught of water and had given the dog another great helping.

"You can?" the others cried, startled by the forester's words, and impressed with his confidence.

"Yes, I can!" mumbled Engel, who seemed to grow hungrier as the moments sped.

"And what's your plan?" asked Roye, drawing his stool up to the table, where he leant forward and gazed at the ranger. "Is it sure?" he went on, laying his hand on the other's arm. "Or is it possible that you may fail and leave us to our disappointment, and my master to his death?"

His face was pale and his voice eager and tremulous, while his eyes gleamed as though they were not far from tears.

The ranger swallowed his mouthful, and then he answered as earnestly as Roye:

"Neither of you shall be disappointed, please God, if you choose to throw in your lot with me and make this venture. You will possibly say 'tis a desperate thing to do. You may even deem me mad. I know not what you may say or think when I tell you what I mean to do. God only knows what you may say about it--that it is like putting one's head into a noose if by any means the plan should fail."

Engel's meal was ended now, and, getting up from the table, he carried his stool with him and sat before the fire, and sprawled his crossed feet to catch the warmth of the burning logs.

"I suppose nine out of ten, not knowing what I know, would say it was a madman's venture, but I'll tell you exactly what is at the back of my mind, and you shall say 'yes' or 'no,' according to what you think, when I have had my say."

The others pulled their stools to the fireside and listened; but while he unfolded his plan they thought he must be mad. Yet when they looked at his face they felt they were mistaken. He had evidently planned the whole thing out, basing this desperate scheme on his knowledge of the castle and not on mere supposition.

They shrank from the venture which the forester proposed, for there could be but one ending to it, without benefiting William Tyndale in the slightest degree. On the very face of it, it was doomed to failure, and it might end in death for them all.

"You are only telling us of the bare possibilities, Otto!" Herman exclaimed, when the ranger had ended. "You surely do not mean that we shall make such a wild attempt?"

The ranger swung round on his stool and faced Herman, but did not speak until he once more turned to gaze into the midst of the burning logs, leaning forward as though he saw pictures among them.

"I am telling you of something more than possibilities," he said presently. "I count what I propose as a certainty, and I mean to try my plan. I shall be glad to have you with me, but if you are afraid--and it's not to be wondered at if you are--I will do the thing alone; only the task will be so much the harder, and the risks will be greater because it will take so much longer time. God helping me, the man on whom so much depends shall be freed!"

Engel sprang to his feet, overturning the stool, and paced the floor, walking round by the wall and past the door and window like a caged beast, back and forth again, as though to walk off his excitement.

"I mean to try it!" he exclaimed. "I've been kneeling a lot to-day in the forest to pray about it, and I believe God has shown me the way. It would be woe to me if I did not do my best for the good man after that."

He was moving about restlessly, not pausing while he spoke.

"I can't imagine how you mean to get inside the castle," Herman said, incredulous. The scheme was such a preposterous one.

Engel went to a cupboard on the farther side of the room, and, feeling about in the darkness, he brought out a sheet of paper, which he smoothed out on the table.

"I'll get a light," he said, and when the candle was burning he spoke again. "You are both able to lay some claim to scholarship, I suppose; so you will understand this plan with a bit of explanation. It's a plan of Schouts' castle, but he doesn't know I've got it, or he might hang me over his gate."

He bent over the sheet when he had covered the window, so that none might look in from outside. Then, with his forefinger, while the others bent over, he opened out the scheme more fully. He showed them the point where he would go in, where he would go when he was once inside, and how he meant to get out with William Tyndale, and the others, with the plan so plainly before them, saw that the scheme was possible, provided there were no accidents to mar it.

But it was a desperate venture, to say the least, for three men to pit themselves against the robber lord, and expect to snatch their friend from the clutches of one who had scores of servitors, every one a trained fighting man who had no fear of God or man, and, like the Norse warriors who had in them the Berserker spirit, would go to the battle when the call came, and fight with frenzied and merciless fury. The bare suggestion was little less than madness.

After bending over the table so long, the forester straightened himself and gazed down at the crumpled sheet of paper which was resting on the table among the crumbs and broken bread which had not been swept away. Herman and Roye glanced up at him, and saw the resolute look on his face and the total absence of fear. The first to speak was Herman.

"Otto Engel."

"Well?"

"I shall go with you."

"So will I!" Roye exclaimed. His pale face showed that he did not speak lightly.

The ranger put out his hands and gripped those which were stretched out to him.

"I counted on you both," he said quietly.

"When shall we start?" Herman asked.

"Now."

Roye turned his back on the others and gazed into the fire, but a few moments later he swung round again.

"I said I would go, and so I will. But 'tis too great a venture without asking God's help before we start," he said, dropping on his knees at the table. The others did the same, and buried their faces in their hands while the elder man prayed concerning this dangerous enterprise, and asked that William Tyndale might have a safe deliverance.

"Now I can go in double strength," cried the ranger, still on his knees; and there was something exalted in his tone and a look on his face that is rare with men. "Please God, we'll have that dear man here before the dawn comes!"

He rose to his feet, and, looking to his weapons, bade the others do the same. Telling the dog to keep safe watch, however long they were away, giving him a big bone to wile away the hours and placing food within his reach in case the creature should grow hungry, he blew out the light, threw open the door, and walked into the night.

The moon was already showing her face in fitful gleams where the leafy canopy of the forest was broken here and there; but even thus it seemed dark at first. They moved in stealth, not knowing who might be abroad. Once they saw a pair of shining eyes in the thicket, but at a sharp word from the ranger and a menacing movement on his part, the beast moved off, snarling, yet frightened, for three men were too many to meet in fight.

"'Twas a wolf, and he's a desperate coward when you get him in a corner," Engel said carelessly.

The slow going in the forest took more than half an hour of their time, but at last they reached the open, where the green slope swept, up which William Tyndale had been taken, as a prisoner.

All was silent now, and the moonlit sweep of grass had neither man nor beast on it.

Away to the left were the silver-shining waters of the river, but it was clear. No craft moved up or down, and nothing tempted the bandit lord from his warm banquet-hall. Presently, however, Herman and his companions caught the glint of steel, and then they saw a soldier come from behind a bush and pace the bank, doubtless on the look out for any vessel that gave promise of plunder.

"Were it not for the trouble that would come, I would go on my knees here and pray that some craft might pass which would bring Schouts and his cut-throat soldiers out to-night," the ranger muttered. "'Twould go some way towards lessening our own danger."

"Many a poor man would lose his life to-night if we prayed like that," said Roye seriously.

"Yes. That's the worst part of it. One benefits so often at the price of another's irremediable loss," came the ranger's grave response. "Ah, well! We'll take it as God sends it!"

He led the way along the edge of the ascending slope, but well within the shadows of the trees.

The castle stood on the brow of the hill, and those who were on this desperate errand saw the massive towers and wondered how an enemy could hope to scale the walls and capture the place. Standing for a while, since there was ample time, Engel told his companions what the castle was like inside, so that they might not be altogether unprepared for what they would see during their venture.

"You pass the gateway which those two towers defend. Then you are in the first or lower ward, which is defended by as many as eight strong towers, and separated from the second ward by another gateway with a portcullis.

"In the second ward is a dungeon tower and a prison chapel, but William Tyndale is not in that part of the castle. I found out so much when I was abroad to-day. You go out of the second ward by a long flight of steps to the third and fourth wards, which are surrounded by a steep rampart and a wall, I know not how many feet thick, nor how many high. Then you come to the very heart of things. There is the King's Tower, where Schouts is lodged. There's the Queen's Tower, where his lady has her quarters. The kitchen and the chapel and other places are near. Well, it's in the King's Tower we have to go, for Master Tyndale is lodged there, and because I have a friend in court, I know just where."

The ranger stopped talking abruptly. They were approaching a broad and open path which ran through the forest, and they caught the sound of men's voices.

Standing back where none could see them, they waited, wondering at the meaning of these unexpected sounds. A minute or two later the lights of lanterns appeared on their right in a dense part of the forest. These came nearer and nearer, and not only were there the sounds of men's voices, but of horses' hoofs, their snortings, and the jingle of their trappings.

Before long a dozen horsemen moved past those who were standing in the shelter of the bushes--two men, fully armed, going first, their drawn swords glancing as they rode out to the grassy slope. Then two others at whose sides swords hung in their scabbards, and behind them a number of well-armed men.

None of the watchers could tell who they were, for the heavy foliage hid their faces; but when the cavalcade swept round towards the castle, Herman gripped Roye's arm.

"Do you know who they are?" he whispered eagerly.

"Ay, I know," Roye muttered. "One is Captain Berndorff of the City Guard, and the man riding at his side is Cochlaeus!"