CHAPTER XVI

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.