he task beyond him; the fighting had fatigued
him, and the current ran like a mill-race. For the present, at any
rate, he must remain on his own side of the Severn. He swam a little
farther up-stream, then made for a place where the bank was low, and
scrambled out. For a while he waited to see whether Father Jerome had
followed him. Getting no signs of his leader, he turned to the
pressing question of his own immediate safety. He quickly decided not
to seek any hiding-place in the forest; the river offered a better
channel for escape. If he could secrete himself for a while, a chance
would offer itself of running down on the tide after nightfall. It
would not be difficult to find a boat, and the Welsh coast of the
estuary should afford him a safe asylum until he could make fuller
plans concerning his future. The voyage would be a perilous one, but
he saw no other chance of escaping capture and death.

The gray cottages of Westbury were before him, backed by the church and
its tall spire. A thought flashed across his mind like an inspiration:
his riverside hiding-place was found! The spire was isolated from the
church, and was entirely of wood, save for a stone stump. Great beams
crossed and recrossed one another, in an ever-narrowing pyramid, for
about two hundred feet. Up in the dimness and final darkness near the
apex was security for any man.

Windybank stole across the river meadow to the nearest house. The door
stood open and the place was empty. The neighbouring house was in like
condition, and a quick survey told him that the fisher-folk, hearing
sounds of the fight, had gone down to learn what strange business was
adoing at midnight. Master Andrew was deficient neither in caution nor
in cunning. He acted promptly. A pantry was visited, and a loaf of
bread abstracted. He slipped from the house and passed through the
orchard. He stuffed his pockets with half-ripe apples; they would help
to quench his thirst, and he could hope for no water in his lofty place
of concealment.

He got to the churchyard wicket, passed through, floundered over the
melancholy mounds that strewed God's acre, and reached the square,
stone stump upon which the wooden spire was reared, and in which hung
the bells. The door was on the latch, the lower part of the belfry
being used as a storehouse for odds and ends of stone, wood, and rope
belonging to the church itself. Windybank knew his bearings fairly
well. He foun