Part 38 (2/2)

The man was silent.

”The pa.s.sword, fellow!”

The cold points of two daggers p.r.i.c.ked his throat; but still he would not speak.

”Where is the blind man?” asked Nigel. ”Here, Andreas, you can have him and do what you will with him.”

”Nay, nay,” the priest whimpered. ”Keep him off me. Save me from blind Andreas! I will tell you everything.”

”The pa.s.sword then, this instant?”

”It is 'Benedicite!'”

”We have the pa.s.sword, Simon,” cried Nigel. ”Come then, let us on to the farther end. These peasants will guard the priest, and they will remain here lest we wish to send a message.”

”Nay, fair sir, it is in my mind that we can do better,” said Simon.

”Let us take the priest with us, so that he who is within may know his voice.”

”It is well thought of,” said Nigel, ”and first let us pray together, for indeed this night may well be our last.”

He and the three men-at-arms knelt in the rain and sent up their simple orisons, Simon still clutching tight to his prisoner's wrist.

The priest fumbled in his breast and drew something forth. ”It is the heart of the blessed confessor Saint Enogat,” said he. ”It may be that it will ease and a.s.soil your souls if you would wish to handle it.”

The four Englishmen pa.s.sed the flat silver case from hand to hand, each pressing his lips devoutly upon it. Then they rose to their feet. Nigel was the first to lower himself down the hole; then Simon; then the priest, who was instantly seized by the other two. The men-at-arms followed them. They had scarcely moved away from the hole when Nigel stopped.

”Surely some one else came after us,” said he.

They listened, but no whisper or rustle came from behind them. For a minute they paused and then resumed their journey through the dark. It seemed a long, long way, though in truth it was but a few hundred yards before they came to a door with a glimmer of yellow light around it, which barred their pa.s.sage. Nigel struck upon it with his hand.

There was the rasping of a bolt and then a loud voice ”Is that you, priest?”

”Yes, it is I,” said the prisoner in a quavering voice. ”Open, Arnold!”

The voice was enough. There was no question of pa.s.swords. The door swung inward, and in an instant the janitor was cut down by Nigel and Simon.

So sudden and so fierce was the attack that save for the thud of his body no sound was heard. A flood of light burst outward into the pa.s.sage, and the Englishmen stood with blinking eyes in its glare.

In front of them lay a stone-flagged corridor, across which lay the dead body of the janitor. It had doors on either side of it, and another grated door at the farther end. A strange hubbub, a kind of low droning and whining filled the air. The four men were standing listening, full of wonder as to what this might mean, when a sharp cry came from behind them. The priest lay in a shapeless heap upon the ground, and the blood was rus.h.i.+ng from his gaping throat. Down the pa.s.sage, a black shadow in the yellow light, there fled a crouching man, who clattered with a stick as he went.

”It is Andreas,” cried West-country Will. ”He has slain him.”

”Then it was he that I heard behind us,” said Nigel. ”Doubtless he was at our very heels in the darkness. I fear that the priest's cry has been heard.”

”Nay,” said Simon, ”there are so many cries that one more may well pa.s.s.

Let us take this lamp from the wall and see what sort of devil's den we have around us.”

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