Presently the steps began again, and then, all of a sudden, a c.h.i.n.k of light appeared in the planking of the room in a far corner. It widened; a trap-door was being opened, letting in a gush of light. They could see the strong hand pushing it up; and d.i.c.k raised his cross-bow, waiting for the head to follow.
But now there came an interruption. From a distant corner of the Moat House shouts began to be heard, and first one voice, and then several, crying aloud upon a name. This noise had plainly disconcerted the murderer, for the trap-door was silently lowered to its place, and the steps hurriedly returned, pa.s.sed once more close below the lads, and died away in the distance.
Here was a moment"s respite. d.i.c.k breathed deep, and then, and not till then, he gave ear to the disturbance which had interrupted the attack, and which was now rather increasing than diminishing. All about the Moat House feet were running, doors were opening and slamming, and still the voice of Sir Daniel towered above all this bustle, shouting for "Joanna."
"Joanna!" repeated d.i.c.k. "Why, who the murrain should this be? Here is no Joanna, nor ever hath been. What meaneth it?"
Matcham was silent. He seemed to have drawn further away. But only a little faint starlight entered by the window, and at the far end of the apartment, where the pair were, the darkness was complete.
"Jack," said d.i.c.k, "I wot not where ye were all day. Saw ye this Joanna?"
"Nay," returned Matcham, "I saw her not."
"Nor heard tell of her?" he pursued.
The steps drew nearer. Sir Daniel was still roaring the name of Joanna from the courtyard.
"Did ye hear of her?" repeated d.i.c.k.
"I heard of her," said Matcham.
"How your voice twitters! What aileth you?" said d.i.c.k. ""Tis a most excellent good fortune, this Joanna; it will take their minds from us."
"d.i.c.k," cried Matcham, "I am lost; we are both lost. Let us flee if there be yet time. They will not rest till they have found me. Or, see!
let me go forth; when they have found me, ye may flee. Let me forth, d.i.c.k--good d.i.c.k, let me away!"
She was groping for the bolt, when d.i.c.k at last comprehended.
"By the ma.s.s!" he cried, "y" are no Jack; y" are Joanna Sedley; y" are the maid that would not marry me!"
The girl paused, and stood silent and motionless. d.i.c.k, too, was silent for a little; then he spoke again.
"Joanna," he said, "y" "ave saved my life, and I have saved yours; and we have seen blood flow, and been friends and enemies--ay, and I took my belt to thrash you; and all that time I thought ye were a boy. But now death has me, and my time"s out, and before I die I must say this: Y" are the best maid and the bravest under heaven, and, if only I could live, I would marry you blithely; and, live or die, I love you."
She answered nothing.
"Come," he said, "speak up, Jack. Come, be a good maid, and say ye love me!"
"Why, d.i.c.k," she cried, "would I be here?"
"Well, see ye here," continued d.i.c.k, "an we but escape whole we"ll marry; and an we"re to die, we die, and there"s an end on"t. But now that I think, how found ye my chamber?"
"I asked it of Dame Hatch," she answered.
"Well, the dame"s staunch," he answered; "she"ll not tell upon you. We have time before us."
And just then, as if to contradict his words, feet came down the corridor, and a fist beat roughly on the door.
"Here!" cried a voice. "Open, Master d.i.c.k; open!" d.i.c.k neither moved nor answered.
"It is all over," said the girl; and she put her arms about d.i.c.k"s neck.
One after another, men came trooping to the door. Then Sir Daniel arrived himself, and there was a sudden cessation of the noise.
"d.i.c.k," cried the knight, "be not an a.s.s. The Seven Sleepers had been awake ere now. We know she is within there. Open, then, the door, man."
d.i.c.k was again silent.
"Down with it," said Sir Daniel. And immediately his followers fell savagely upon the door with foot and fist. Solid as it was, and strongly bolted, it would soon have given way; but once more fortune interfered.
Over the thunderstorm of blows the cry of a sentinel was heard; it was followed by another; shouts ran along the battlements, shouts answered out of the wood. In the first moment of alarm it sounded as if the foresters were carrying the Moat House by a.s.sault. And Sir Daniel and his men, desisting instantly from their attack upon d.i.c.k"s chamber, hurried to defend the walls.
"Now," cried d.i.c.k, "we are saved."
He seized the great old bedstead with both hands, and bent himself in vain to move it.
"Help me, Jack. For your life"s sake, help me stoutly!" he cried.
Between them, with a huge effort, they dragged the big frame of oak across the room, and thrust it endwise to the chamber door.
"Ye do but make things worse," said Joanna, sadly. "He will then enter by the trap."
"Not so," replied d.i.c.k. "He durst not tell his secret to so many. It is by the trap that we shall flee. Hark! The attack is over. Nay, it was none!"
It had, indeed, been no attack; it was the arrival of another party of stragglers from the defeat of Risingham that had disturbed Sir Daniel.
They had run the gauntlet under cover of the darkness; they had been admitted by the great gate; and now, with a great stamping of hoofs and jingle of accoutrements and arms, they were dismounting in the court.
"He will return anon," said d.i.c.k. "To the trap!"
He lighted a lamp, and they went together into the corner of the room.
The open c.h.i.n.k through which some light still glittered was easily discovered, and, taking a stout sword from his small armoury, d.i.c.k thrust it deep into the seam, and weighed strenuously on the hilt. The trap moved, gaped a little, and at length came widely open. Seizing it with their hands, the two young folk threw it back. It disclosed a few steps descending, and at the foot of them, where the would-be murderer had left it, a burning lamp.
"Now," said d.i.c.k, "go first and take the lamp. I will follow to close the trap."
So they descended one after the other, and as d.i.c.k lowered the trap, the blows began once again to thunder on the panels of the door.
CHAPTER IV--THE Pa.s.sAGE
The pa.s.sage in which d.i.c.k and Joanna now found themselves was narrow, dirty, and short. At the other end of it, a door stood partly open; the same door, without doubt, that they had heard the man unlocking. Heavy cobwebs hung from the roof; and the paved flooring echoed hollow under the lightest tread.
Beyond the door there were two branches, at right angles. d.i.c.k chose one of them at random, and the pair hurried, with echoing footsteps, along the hollow of the chapel roof. The top of the arched ceiling rose like a whale"s back in the dim glimmer of the lamp. Here and there were spyholes, concealed, on the other side, by the carving of the cornice; and looking down through one of these, d.i.c.k saw the paved floor of the chapel--the altar, with its burning tapers--and stretched before it on the steps, the figure of Sir Oliver praying with uplifted hands.
At the other end, they descended a few steps. The pa.s.sage grew narrower; the wall upon one hand was now of wood; the noise of people talking, and a faint flickering of lights, came through the interstices; and presently they came to a round hole about the size of a man"s eye, and d.i.c.k, looking down through it, beheld the interior of the hall, and some half a dozen men sitting, in their jacks, about the table, drinking deep and demolishing a venison pie. These were certainly some of the late arrivals.
"Here is no help," said d.i.c.k. "Let us try back."