Part 16 (2/2)
”The miserable hound!” I answered between set teeth, ”'tis a pity Wilfrid did not strike a thought harder and break his worthless skull.”
Cedric's face was wried with pain and wrath. He stamped upon the ground in bitter impatience. Then, pulling from the basket the huge meat pie which had formed the greater part of the provision he had sought to carry to the prisoner, he dropped it before him and struck it with most vicious kick before it reached the ground. The crust flew off in a dozen pieces, and revealed the inner part as no juicy slices of flesh of fowl or pig but a close-wound coil of hempen rope, such as no mortal man could feed upon.
”Had I placed this beneath my armpits as was my first thought,” growled Cedric, ”it would now have been safe hidden in the bundle of straw they have given Wilfrid for a bed. Fortune favored us not, it seems; but mayhap that fickle jade will smile on our further contrivings. I made a new plan even as I climbed the tower stairs; and Wilfrid is well apprised of it. 'Tis not so simple as the first nor seemingly so sure; but it may serve our turn.”
”Must we wait till the morrow and risk another entry of the castle?” I questioned. ”Mayhap the bailiff will not ride abroad so opportunely.”
”Nay, we shall make the essay to-night,” he answered slowly. ”Time presses, if Wilfrid is not to be so weakened by fasting as to be incapable of any effort in his own behalf. Marcel hath already been told to have the horses here at nine and await our coming till dawn if need be. If we can come by a ball of fine, stout cord like fis.h.i.+ng lines, we will have that rope in the tower room by midnight. Then all the rest will be quickly done, and Wilfrid a dozen leagues from Kimberley ere sunrise.”
An hour before midnight Cedric and I lay under the group of saplings, ten yards from the castle moat and opposite the window of the room which held young Wilfrid of Birkenhead. Beside us on the ground, lay the ball of cord, with one projecting end fastened to the coil of rope. Now Cedric took a cross-bow bolt from the sack at his girdle and tied the other end of the cord firmly about it. Then, drawing the bow, he placed the bolt in groove.
The sky was covered with thin clouds that half obscured the stars; and the moon had not yet risen. The castle wall on the other side of the moat was a gray blur in the murk, but we could clearly see the sentinel as he slowly paced his rounds of the battlements. The steel cap that he wore and the point of his spear caught now and again a gleam of the starlight. Twenty feet below the tower's summit a blacker square in the wall was the window of Wilfrid's cell; and to the right of this could barely be discerned the lattice which had been swung wide as though to admit the fresher air.
Cedric crouched on his knees, gazing at the window till the sentry pa.s.sed from sight; then softly he uttered the cry of an owl. At once some white object fluttered in the blackness of the cell window. Cedric rose to his feet, took careful aim at the window and let fly the bolt.
But alas! the pull of the cord as it unwound from the ball checked the quarrel sadly, and it rang on the stones of the wall no higher than our heads. We crouched at once in the shadows, certain that the sentry had heard its steely stroke; but he came not back to the tower; and soon we breathed again.
Cedric drew in the line and recharged his weapon, whispering to me the while that he should have better known than to have it so tightly coiled, and that another try, with the cord lying loose, would surely place the bolt within the window.
Now the sentry came again on his rounds; and we waited perforce for his pa.s.sing. When he had gone once more Cedric threw his weapon to his shoulder and sent the bolt on its way. How my ears strained in listening! And, an instant later, how my heart sank when I heard once more the clang of iron 'gainst the tower stones and realized that Cedric had failed a second time to strike his mark at fifty paces.
This time the sentry heard the stroke-or so it seemed-for he came hurrying back to the tower battlements, and peered downward past the open window for minutes together. But all had become as still as death, and there was naught that he could see; so at length he turned away and resumed his pacing.
As Cedric again drew in the quarrel, he whispered to me:
”I have it now. The line drew down my bolt by a yard or more. I must allow for that by a higher aim. The third cast never fails; and for that we yet have time ere yonder sentry is sure there's mischief afoot.”
He took a fresh bolt and tied the cord with care about it. Then for the third time he aimed at the tower above us. 'Twas the lucky third indeed, for, close following the whir of the quarrel, came a m.u.f.fled thud as it struck the oaken door within the cell. This seemed not to reach the ears of the sentry on the other side of the battlements, for though we listened with bated breath, there was no sound of his returning footsteps. The next instant we could see the unspent portion of the line was tightening with a pull from the tower. Then straightway the coil of rope left its place at our feet, swam through the moat and climbed the tower's side.
Cedric and I clasped hands in joy, for now we could see our project succeeding. In no more time than he needed to descend from the window, swim the moat and reach the horses in the hazel copse, Wilfrid would be safely away from Kimberley.
Once more the sentry made his rounds, and once more pa.s.sed regardless of what was going forward six yards below him. Wilfrid appeared at the window, and, lowering himself hand over hand, came swiftly down the rope to the cliff below. There misfortune awaited us. As he dangled from the rope with his feet seeking a hold on the sloping cliff, he loosened a bit of rock, the size of a man's head, that lay near the tower base; and this accursed stone slid and rolled noisily down the crag and struck the waters of the moat with a hideous splas.h.i.+ng.
At once the sentry, whose ears mayhap had been sharpened by the other noise for which he had found no reason, came running again to the tower.
Peering into the darkness below, he spied the prisoner just as he leaped down the rock and plunged into the moat.
The sentinel was a ready man and determined,-such an one as might well have served a better master. Setting up a l.u.s.ty shout of alarm, he turned at once to a pile of the stones that were kept on the battlements for the repelling of besiegers, and began hurling these into the moat.
The water's surface was in shadow and we could not see the head of the swimmer, nor could we tell whether any of the soldier's wild-flung missiles had found their mark. A minute pa.s.sed wherein my blood seemed to freeze and my limbs to lock themselves fast like those of one who perishes from a mad dog's bite. The stones still followed one another in vicious plunges into the black waters: and the soldier continued to halloo for the guardsmen at the gate to lower the bridge and search the farther bank.
Then Cedric broke away from me and plunged into the moat. Forgetting all else, I followed him to the water's edge, stood peering vainly into the blackness, and might have dived in also had he not speedily returned. He was swimming l.u.s.tily with one hand, and with the other bearing up his comrade. I seized them both as they came within reach, and hauled them ash.o.r.e. Cedric joined with me and we drew Wilfrid up the bank and half way to the group of saplings. There Cedric stopped with a groan of misery, and fell on his knees by the limp body of his friend. The wind had brushed the clouds from the sky; and by the starlight I saw that Wilfrid's head had been crushed by one of the stones from the battlements.
Cedric rose to his feet and shook his fist in frenzy toward the King's stronghold. But already the bridge was down, and the guard was pouring across. I plucked my comrade by the sleeve.
”Come Cedric, come! Our friend is past all help. Let us away ere they slay us also.”
He turned to me with a face of deathly whiteness; and for a moment I thought he would refuse. But I seized his hand, and he let me hurry him to the shelter of the trees. Through these we quickly pa.s.sed, and then raced down the dim-lit field to a hedgerow a furlong away. Running behind this, we soon distanced our pursuers.
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