The Young Castellan Part 65

"Take 'em from them, sir."

"Rash folly, Ben. I'm soldier enough now to know that it would be like throwing away your lives."

"Humph!" growled Ben; and the officer now in command came up and said, firmly--

"Now, Master Royland, I am sorry to seem harsh with you, but, saving at meal-times, when I shall be glad to see you, I must ask you to keep your chamber till General Hepburn returns, and hold no communication whatever with your fellow-prisoners."

"Very well, sir," said Roy, majestically.

"And you, sergeant, go to your fellows and keep with them. You can have an hour in the court-yard every day under guard. March!"

Ben saluted and went to where the corporal, Sam Donny, and the rest were seated on the stone bench in the sun, spoke to them, and they all rose and went through the door-way close at hand; while Roy bowed to the captain stiffly and went through to the private apartments, and thence to his own room, where he shut himself in, and soon after heard a sentry placed at his door, a piece of routine that had for some time been discontinued.

"How suspicious!" muttered Roy. "But no wonder! He doesn't mean to be caught napping. More didn't I, but I was. No chance of him having the same luck."

He went to the window, and the first thing he saw was the dead horse being dragged towards the gate-way, where it was left to wait till the bridge should be lowered again.

"Poor thing! How roughly they are using it!" he thought. "Can't feel, though, now."

Then his attention was taken up by seeing old Jenk with his white hair and beard streaming, as he tottered here and there in the sunshine, looking excited and without his weapon.

"Why, they've taken the sword away from the poor old fellow," thought Roy. "How absurd! It will make him half-mad, if it hasn't done so already."

But in a few moments the old man sat down on the pedestal of the sun-dial, and his head drooped on his breast.

Beyond him, just visible at the foot of the slope and outside the stables, Roy could see the Roundhead trooper, bareheaded and stripped to his breeches and shirt, rolling up his shirt-sleeves and beginning to clean his horse's harness. But something which seemed to be more important took the boy's attention the next moment, and that was the figure of Master Pawson upon the ramparts, walking up and down in the sunshine, this being the first time he had been visible by daylight since the general's stern words.

"Taking advantage of his being away," thought Roy; and he was about to shrink back to avoid being seen, but his pride forbade that, and he leaned out and amused himself by parting the thick growth of old ivy, and thinking how easily he could get down into the court if he liked.

"And that wretch could climb up while I'm asleep and kill me if he liked," he thought, with a slight shudder, which he laughed off the next moment as folly.

Dinner was announced in due time, and he was half-disposed not to go; but he joined the officers, and obtained permission from the captain to visit his mother's room to tea.

"Oh, yes," said that officer, quietly. "I do not wish to be too hard upon you, Royland, only I cannot have you conspiring with your men to retake the castle now we seem weak."

So Roy spent a pleasant evening with his mother, and in good time returned to his own room, heard the sentry placed outside, and then sat in the summer evening, trying to see the men stationed opposite, and upon the towers, from his open window.

It was a very dark night, hot and promising a thunderstorm, the air feeling so close that, when at last Roy retired, he left the large window wide open.

"No fear of Master Pawson playing any tricks," he said to himself with a laugh as he undressed and lay down, wondering whether the general was going to attack some place, being in perfect ignorance of everything but the fact that he had gone on some expedition.

He fell asleep directly, and lay breathing hard till, in the midst of an uneasy dream, he was awakened suddenly by feeling a hand pressed upon his mouth.

Like a flash through the darkness he saw everything: Master Pawson had climbed up to his window from the court, entered silently, and was about to strangle him as he lay.

But before he could attempt to resist, a pair of warm lips were pressed upon his brow, and then glided to his ear to whisper--

"Roy, my boy, not a sound! Don't speak! It is I--your father."

The lad's breast rose as a great sob of joy struggled to his lips, while his hands seized that upon his mouth, pressed it closer, kissed the palm, and were then pa.s.sed round the neck of him who knelt by his bed.

They did not stay there a moment; for one began to feel the face, and the other was pa.s.sed over the head.

No moustache and pointed beard, no long flowing curls, only stubble and short hair, and a long patch of plaster extending from the hair about the left temple to the right eyebrow.

Roy's mental eyes were opened; he saw it all now. At last! His gallant father had risked his life to come to them in the disguise of a Roundhead trooper, and the general must have been sent on a fool's errand so that the castle could be captured again.

_Thump, thump, thump_! went Roy's heart as these thoughts rushed through his brain. Then the lips at his ear said, and it sounded strangely incongruous--almost mocking:

"Go on snoring as you were, so that the sentry at your door may hear."

Roy obeyed, and imitated the real thing as well as he could.

"Your mother? If safe and well press my hand."

The pressure was given, and the whisper went on through the snoring.

"Roy, I have come at great risk through the accident of the capture of a messenger with a despatch. The general has gone where he was desired, but we have had time to take our men in another direction. To-night two hundred Cavaliers will have ridden in as near as they dare, and then one hundred and fifty will have dismounted and marched silently under cover of the darkness opposite the gates.--Snore, boy, snore!"

Roy had ceased his hard breathing, but his heart worked harder than ever, and he snored again; while Sir Granby went on:

"Tell me how many of our men you have here; where they are; whether the guard in the gate tower can be mastered while the bridge is lowered and the portcullis raised. Tell me everything you can, with your lips to my ear. My men must be waiting by now."

Roy went on snoring, for the sound of the sentry pacing to and fro came plainly through the door. But Sir Granby took up the hard breathing, and Roy placed his lips to his father's ear and whispered--

"Nine good brave fellows, but they are in the lower hall, and sentries are placed over them.--They are all unarmed.--Guard-chamber and turret-stair are carefully guarded.--At least ten men in the portcullis-room and furnace-chamber.--Impossible to get in that way!"

Sir Granby's lips were at his son's ear directly, and he said--

"I heard a legend when I was a boy, that there was a secret way into the castle, but it made no impression, and I never recalled it till I heard that the place was taken. Don't tell me that the enemy surprised you through that?"

"Must," whispered Roy; and antic.i.p.ating that his father would suggest using the same means, he continued: "Can't use it now; all blown up. Is there no other way? Can't you scale the ramparts?"

"Impossible, boy. I must leave you, then. My life will be forfeit when the colonel returns, and it is too valuable to my king, my men, to you and your mother, to be thrown away."

"But how can you escape, father?"

"By reaching the ramparts and plunging into the moat. Good-bye, boy.

Tell your mother I will return soon with as great a force as I can; for this place must be retaken. There--Heaven be with you! I dare not stay, for it may be hours before I can reach the ramparts."

"But is there no other way, father? A hundred and fifty men, and no way of getting them in!"

"Unless the drawbridge can be lowered and portcullis raised--none!"

A deep silence, only broken by the pacing of the sentry outside, and Roy dreaded now lest the change of men should take place, and the door be opened to see whether the prisoner was safe. He tried all he could to think out some plan, but every one seemed mad; and it was horrible to be so near success, and yet to fail.

"It is of no use, boy; we are wasting time," said Sir Granby, as Roy clung to him. "It would be mad to try any other way, and spilling precious blood. Good-bye!"

Roy tried to say the words in return, but they would not come; and, thoroughly unnerved in his despair, he clung to his father's neck till he felt himself repelled; and then the way of escape from their dilemma came.