the dwelling proper, known as the Great House, occupied the entire
left of the square, the kitchens and other offices adjoining the
retainers' quarters on the south. An enormous hall, running clear to the
roof, took up the central portion of the house, staircases and galleries
affording access to the store and sleeping-rooms on the second and attic
stories. The roof proper was surmounted by a para-petted and loop-holed
structure called the fighting platform, and it was thither that Constans
had repaired upon receiving the startling intelligence of his sister's
disappearance. Let us rejoin him there.

In the leisurely moving figure glimpsed through the birches, Constans
had instantly recognized Issa. Plainly she had been out flower-hunting;
with the aid of his binoculars he could determine that she carried a
bunch of the delicate pink-and-white blossoms that we call May-bloom.
She was directing her steps straight for the house, but either she was
unaccountably deaf to the continuous clanging of the alarm-bell or,
still more strangely, unaware of its significance; she walked as though
in a reverie, slowly and with her head bent forward. Thunder of God! it
was a trap, and the foolish girl would not see. Unquestionably, the
Doomsmen had forced the stockade at some distant point and were even now
in ambush about the keep. But Constans, for all his keenness of vision
and the assistance of his glass, could discover nothing to indicate the
presence of any considerable body of men. There was no one in actual
sight save he who sat upon his blood-bay steed, girth deep in the Ochre
brook under shadow of the alders. Only one, but that one!

Constans found himself in the court-yard; how he scarcely knew. The
water gate still stood open with the drawbridge lowered, but both could
be easily secured within a few seconds should the enemy venture upon any
open demonstration. Sir Gavan stood in the covered way talking anxiously
with his eldest son Tennant, who had just returned from an unsuccessful
search of the upper orchard.

Constans, in his confusion of mind, did not notice his father and
brother; he ran across the court-yard to the horse-boxes. His black mare
Night whickered upon recognizing her master, and tried to rub her muzzle
against his cheek as he fumbled with the throat-latch of the bridle. An
instant longer, to lead out the mare and vault upon her back, and he was
clattering through the court-yard and covered way.

Upon re