wildcat Nigel bounded toward it and gained the steps a stride
or two before the jailers. They turned and made for the other which led
to the passage, but Simon and his comrades were nearer to it than they.
Two sweeping blows, two dagger thrusts into writhing figures, and the
ruffians who worked the will of the Butcher lay dead upon the floor of
their slaughter-house.

Oh, the buzz of joy and of prayer from all those white lips! Oh, the
light of returning hope in all those sunken weary eyes! One wild shout
would have gone up had not Nigel's outstretched hands and warning voice
hushed them to silence.

He opened the door behind him. A curving newel staircase wound upward
into the darkness. He listened, but no sound came down. There was a key
in the outer lock of the iron door. He whipped it out and turned it on
the inner side. The ground that they had gained was safe. Now they could
turn to the relief of these poor fellows beside them. A few strong blows
struck off the irons and freed the three dancers before the fire. With a
husky croak of joy, they rushed across to their comrades' water-barrels,
plunged their heads in like horses, and drank and drank and drank. Then
in turn the poor shivering wretches were taken out of the barrels, their
skins bleached and wrinkled with long soaking. Their bonds were torn
from them; but, cramped and fixed, their limbs refused to act, and they
tumbled and twisted upon the floor in their efforts to reach Nigel and
to kiss his hand.

In a corner lay Aylward, dripping from his barrel and exhausted with
cold and hunger. Nigel ran to his side and raised his head. The jug of
wine from which the two jailers had drunk still stood upon their table.
The Squire placed it to the archer's lips and he took a hearty pull at
it.

"How is it with you now, Aylward?"

"Better, Squire, better, but may I never touch water again as long as I
live! Alas! poor Dicon has gone, and Stephen also--the life chilled out
of them. The cold is in the very marrow of my bones. I pray you, let me
lean upon your arm as far as the fire, that I may warm the frozen blood
and set it running in my veins once more."

A strange sight it was to see these twenty naked men crouching in a
half-circle round the fire with their trembling hands extended to the
blaze. Soon their tongues at least were thawed, and they poured out the
story of their troubles with many a prayer and ejaculation to the saints
for their safe delivery. No