This is a secret which should have been for
my uncle's ears alone."

"Is it so?" said Gaston; "then I will leave the room, if it please you
and the Knight--though methought I was scarce small enough to be so
easily overlooked; and having heard the half--"

"You had best hear the whole," said Arthur. "Uncle Eustace, what think
you?"

"I know not what to think, Arthur. You must be your own judge."

Arthur's young brow wore a look of deep thought; at last he said, "Do
not go then, Gaston. If I have done wrong, I must bear the blame, and,
be it as it may, my uncle needs must tell you all that I may tell him."

"Let us hear, then," said Eustace.

"Well, then," said Arthur, who had by this time collected himself, "you
must know that this Chateau Norbelle is one of those built by that
famous Paladin, the chief of freebooters, Sir Renaud de Montauban, of
whom you have told me so many tales. Now all of these have secret
passages in the vaults communicating with the outer country."

"The boy is right," said Gaston; "I have seen one of them in the Castle
of Montauban itself."

"Then it seems," proceeded Arthur, "that this Castle hath hitherto been
in the keeping of a certain one-eyed Seneschal, a great friend and
comrade of Sir Leonard Ashton--"

"Le Borgne Basque!" exclaimed both Knight and Squire, looking at each
other in amaze.

"True, true," said Arthur. "Now you believe me. Well, the enemy being
in the neighbourhood, it was thought right to increase the garrison,
and place it under the command of a Knight, and these cowardly traitors
have wrought with my Lord of Pembroke and Sir John Chandos to induce
the Prince to give you this post--it being their intention that this
wicked Seneschal and his equally wicked garrison should admit Sir
Oliver de Clisson, the butcher of Bretagne himself, through the secret
passage. And, uncle," said the boy, pressing Eustace's hand, while
tears of indignation sprang to his eyes, "the letter expressly said
there was to be no putting to ransom. Oh, Uncle Eustace, go not to
this Castle!"

"And how came you by this knowledge?" asked the Knight.

"That I may never tell," said Arthur.

"By no means which might not beseem the son of a brave man?" said
Eustace.

"Mistrust me not so foully," said the boy. "I know it from a sure
hand, and there is not dishonour, save on the part of those villain
traitors. Oh, promise me, fair uncle, not to put yourself in their
hands!"

"A