y one, the wild company went by Beltane, fierce-eyed and stealthy,
until there none remained save Giles, who, leaning upon his bow, looked
with yearning eyes upon the costly splendour.

"Aha," he whispered, "a pretty nest, tall brother. I'll warrant ye full
many a fair white dove hath beat her tender pinions--"

"Come!" said Beltane, and speaking, reached out his torch to bed-alcove
and tapestried wall; and immediately silk and arras went up in a puff
of flame--a leaping fire, yellow-tongued, that licked at gilded roof-beam
and carven screen and panel.

"Brother!" whispered Giles, "O brother, 'tis a sin, methinks, to lose
so much good booty. That coffer, now--Ha!" With the cry the archer
leapt out through the tapestried doorway. Came the ring of steel, a
heavy fall, and thereafter a shriek that rang and echoed far and near
ere it sank to a silence wherein a voice whispered:

"Quick, brother--the besotted fools stir at last--away!"

Then, o'erleaping that which sprawled behind the curtain, Beltane sped
along a passage and down a winding stair, yet pausing, ever and anon,
with flaring torch: and ever small fires waxed behind him. So came he
at last to the sally-port and hurling the blazing torch behind him,
closed the heavy door. And now, standing upon the platform, he looked
down into the inner bailey. Dawn was at hand, a glimmering mist wherein
vague forms moved, what time Walkyn, looming ghostly and gigantic in
the mist, mustered his silent, ghostly company ere, lifting his axe, he
turned and vanished, his fifty phantoms at his heels.

Now glancing upward at the rugged face of the keep, Beltane beheld thin
wisps of smoke that curled from every arrow-slit, slow-wreathing
spirals growing ever denser ere they vanished in the clammy mists of
dawn, while from within a muffled clamour rose--low and inarticulate
yet full of terror. Then Beltane strode down the zig-zag stair and came
forthright upon Roger, pale and anxious, who yet greeted him in joyous
whisper:

"Master, I began to fear for thee. What now?"

"To the arch of the parapet yonder. Let each man crouch there in the
gloom, nor stir until I give word."

Now as they crouched thus, with weapons tight-gripped and eyes that
glared upon the coming day, a sudden trumpet brayed alarm upon the
battlements--shouts were heard far and near, and a running of mailed
feet; steel clashed, the great castle, waking at last, was all astir
about them and full of sudden bustle