CHAPTER VI

THE SEARCH

Margaret's heart quailed when she hurried out of the room and followed the men up the stairs. Now, for a certainty, Herman's prot�g� would fall into the hands of his enemies, and escape seemed impossible. Her pulse beat high, and despair swept over her, to think how she was to witness the undoing of one who was striving for the triumph of the right.

To be caught in a trap like a rat! It was unbearable to think of.

The dulled sound of the footsteps on the carpeted boards of the stairs seemed to call up a vision of a scene which would ere long be real--the vision of a prisoner on his trial; condemned in effect by his judges before he had made his defence, just because he was William Tyndale. And then the attitude of the crowd that thronged the market-place where the stake was standing, and Tyndale chained to it. She could imagine it all, and she could almost hear the babel of execration against him.

To think of it! A man of such noble mien to be browbeaten and battered by the screaming mob, cursed, reviled, mud-covered. She shuddered at the thought, and while the impulse came to follow the others up the stairs, she hid her face while doing so, and sobbed.

She stood at the top of the stairs and looked around. Here, on her right hand, was the room into which Herman carried the tired stranger that night they brought him into the city. On the left was Herman's chamber. Just beyond it, again, was his mother's. Master Tyndale must be in one of them.

Captain Berndorf went into Herman's room, followed by the others, and in a few moments Margaret heard the soldier say roughly:

"Are you here? Come out of it, if you are!"

Resistance would be unavailing, for the Captain's sword was drawn and ready, gleaming in the lamp-light.

Margaret went into Tyndale's chamber. It was lighted by the lantern in the street, for the rays came through the rain-splashed window, and as she stepped in she almost expected to see him sitting somewhere, or lying on the bed, waiting for the inevitable. Yet, when she stood well within the place there was a sense of emptiness. William Tyndale was neither in the bed, nor at the table near the window.

Was he really gone?

While her keen eyes ranged around she saw a square of whiteness on the floor, by the table, and went to it quickly, with an instinctive feeling that it was something which would betray Tyndale, or Herman. When she bent down and caught it up she knew that it was a printed sheet. Under it lay another; under that, again, a third. By the dim light she saw that they were printed folios, and one glance was sufficient to show her that they were proofs of the New Testament, such as she had seen in her father's hidden cellar.

She glanced towards the door, wondering whether the soldiers were there, and had seen that she had some papers in her hand, but the doorway was clear. Bending her head a little, she saw that the passage was empty. The men were still in Herman's room.

She thought of the way out of this very real danger with her swift woman wit, and hastily unbuttoning her dress, she pushed the sheets into her bosom. It was nothing that they were crumpled. What were three sheets of printed paper compared to the lives of two men?

To her, as she thrust them in, the papers seemed to make enough noise to be heard all over the house, for they crinkled in her hands, and the dampness came on her face lest she had been heard, and they should ask her what she had been doing.

While she was rapidly buttoning her dress she turned her face to the window, where the rain came against the glass in heavy gusts, just as the wind drove it. Below were the soldiers of the City Guard, as when she saw them last, two lines of silent, unmoving men, with their halberds gleaming.

The hope sprang in her heart that William Tyndale was really gone. He was not in Herman's room, or they would have found him. They were now going into Mistress Bengel's bedroom, and would they find him there? If not, he could not be in the house, for he was not in this chamber. Her woman mind showed her what a man might not have noticed. The bed was not made as if waiting for a sleeper. It was surprising. Herman's mother had taken away the sheets from the bed, and it looked as though the room had not been used for a long time past.

Margaret centred her attention on what might be taking place in that bedroom, and because the suspense was more than she could endure, she went to see what they were doing.

The men were there--the three; and it was a strange scene on which she gazed. Herman was standing aside, his back to the window, where he could see everything, and Margaret wondered at the expression on his face. It was something like injured innocence, and, painful though the tension was, she could not repress a smile when she saw him watching with the air of a person subjected to the ignominy of suspicion, and to have his home invaded for the search of a man who was not there.

The Captain had his sword drawn, and was walking round the room, looking into the cupboard, and under the bed, and behind the dresses which hung in a screened-off corner. In all reality serious, disastrous in its promise, it yet appeared ludicrous and undignified.

The man-at-arms was standing apart, and the look on his face when he glanced towards Herman intimated that he thought this a fool's errand, on which they had been sent by some mischief-loving fellow who wanted to hoax the City Guard. And on such a night! Of late they had been brought away from the comfortable guard-room for many a fruitless hunt for this fellow, Tyndale, and this was all of a piece with the past experience.

The search was fruitless, but the Captain was suspicious of a hiding-place. Going to the walls, and bidding the soldier do the same, he began to beat the handle of his sword against the walls. First resting his halberd in one corner of the room, the man drew a dagger from his belt and did as his Captain did. He banged on the wall until the dust began to fly, and the plaster began to drop in flakes upon the floor. William Tyndale was too big a prize to lose for the sake of a few bits of mortar. They were sounding for some hollow place where a man might hide.

"You need not spoil my home like that!" a woman's voice came unexpectedly, and Herman's mother pushed past Margaret into the room, and laid her hand on the soldier's wrist, speaking with some asperity. "I shall appeal to the Burgomaster, and require him to pay for the repair of this wanton damage."

She wrenched the dagger from the man's hand, and held it out for the Captain to see. Her eyes were on a picture through which the fellow had driven his weapon, a picture which had been her dead husband's handiwork in his hours of leisure.

"Is that how you come to an honest woman's house?" she cried, swinging round to face the astonished soldier, her eyes flashing, and her bosom heaving while she thought of this wilful damage done, when a hand put out to remove the picture would have prevented its ruin. "I will go to the Burgomaster even now!" she exclaimed, taking down a heavy cloak from a nail in the corner, and throwing it about her shoulders, with the dagger still in her hand while she began to tie the cord at her throat.

The Captain had turned to look at her, the point of his sword held downwards. He saw the damage that was done, and realised the reasonableness of the woman's resentment.

"You were over-rough," he exclaimed, looking at the picture. "But, on the other hand, since we were, told that Master Tyndale would be found here we must needs miss nothing in our attempt to discover his whereabouts."

"His whereabouts?" cried Herman's mother, usually so gentle, rarely other than placid, but now roused by the roughness shown towards what to her had such holy associations. "Find the man if he is here; but neither you nor that fellow there shall damage what is precious to me, since it was my dead husband's work, finished but three days before he died!"

She sat on the bed, and, burying her face in her hands, wept, and the two men could do no other than look on her in concern as her sobs shook her. Margaret stepped forward like Herman, and sought to comfort her, but the girl's face went hot when she heard the paper in her bosom crinkle as she put her arms about the weeping woman.

The men stole away into the other room, carrying the lamp with them, leaving the others in the darkness.

"Is there any danger, Herman?" Margaret asked, drawing her face away from his mother's, which was wet with tears.

"Not unless they find Tyndale, and they won't do that," said Herman confidently.

Again they heard the sound of shifting furniture, the slam of a cupboard door, the tapping of walls, but less roughly; and, after a while, the soldiers stood in the doorway.

"It is as it has been frequently of late," said the Captain, almost angrily. "We are being fooled by someone, and could I but lay hands on the miscreant who sends us on such errands, I would wring his neck!"

He turned to go away, but paused.

"I am sorry, mistress, the picture was damaged. Send it to Josef Amon, the picture dealer, and tell him to put it to rights at my charges."

He moved away, and tramped down the stairs. To make quite sure that they were not deceived, he and the man with him, and the soldiers who waited below with their feet in a pool of water which had dripped from their clothing, passed through the lower room to the yard, tapping wherever they went.

They were absolutely baffled, for they found nothing which betrayed the presence of the man they sought, and on whose head there was so big a price.

The Captain's voice travelled up the stairs.

"Good-night, mistress. Send the picture to Josef Amon."

The street door slammed. A word of command was heard outside, made tremulous by the gusty wind, and a tramp of soldiers followed, sounded less and less, and before long was no more heard.

Herman had gone to the window which looked into the street, but when he returned the candle showed a laughing face. His eyes danced. His whole frame shook. Laughter conquered him so absolutely that he had to bury his face in the pillow to deaden the sound, lest someone might overhear his boisterous mirth.

"Forgive me, mother," he said, in little bursts, when it was possible to find speech at all. "To think how we did them! Oh, to think of it!"

He laughed the more, holding his sides because of the pain.

It was then that his mother saw how wet Margaret was, and she stood up, in concern, wiping her eyes quickly.

"My child, you are soaking. Herman, go downstairs, and I will put this poor girl into some dry clothes, else she will be chilled to the bone, and ill may come of it."

Herman was serious in an instant, and went away, and in less than half an hour Margaret came down with such clothes as Mistress Bengel could find. Then she told her business.

"Where is Master Tyndale? Has he left the city?" she asked, and set the soddened note her father sent by her on the table. It was so limp that the writing on its cover was scarcely readable.

Herman bent down and kissed the puzzled-looking face, and hugged her fondly, laughing the while.

"Is he gone out of the city?" she asked, because her question had not been answered.

"Come with me, little woman," said her lover; and, putting his arm about her, he led her into the front room.

Moving the table when he had made sure that the shutters were safely closed, and the window so heavily curtained that no one could look in from the street, Herman cleared the centre of the floor, removed the carpet, and tossed it in a heap into one of the corners.

"Just a word, little one," he said, before he did more; and he sat down while he spoke, the better to see his darling's face. "I never told you, but years ago my father made a discovery when he was digging for a safe place in which to hide what bit of money he had, in case of war, and he came across something. You shall see it."

He went on his knees, smiling when he saw Margaret's wide-open eyes. Taking the knife from his belt, he drove the blade deeply into one of the boards, and using it as a handle moved the board aside. He moved the next with his hand, a third, and another also. Asking for a lamp, he held it over an open space, and looking into the blackness Margaret exclaimed in surprise.

At her feet were some rough, wooden steps, leading into what seemed to her a deep well, the bottom of which was not visible. Herman put a foot on the topmost step, and descended a little space, when he asked for the lamp.

"Come with me," he said, as she handed it to him, and Margaret followed without hesitation. Reaching the bottom, step, she found herself in a chamber about ten feet long, six feet wide, or thereabouts, and rather more in height. At the farther corner was a spiral staircase, and when Herman went down with the lamp, and she followed, she came to another room.

Herman saw her bewildered looks, and explained.

"My father thought it was a stronghold for heretics when, a century ago, persecution was keener even than now. There were tokens of it in abundance; but never mind that at present. I'm going to let you into the secret of Master Tyndale's strange disappearance."

He cried, but not loudly, and to his call there was a hollow return of the sound.

"Master Tyndale!" he cried again.

"Who is it?" was the response.

"It is I. Herman Bengel."