'Twas ten by the sun when we heard, from Dunwoodie, far on our right, the three long blasts of the horn. Instantly my father and I took half our men, and leaving the rest under old Marvin, the archer, ran through the forest toward the fray. Afterward we learned to our cost that some of our leaders took not so careful thought of the places of their forces in the skirmish line, but rushed off at once to the alarm, followed by well nigh their whole companies, leaving in places gaps of a mile or more in what should have been our close-drawn cordon.

Be that as it might, ten minutes had not pa.s.sed before Dunwoodie with his half hundred archers was reinforced by a gallant array of bowmen and men-at-arms. The outlaws, a hundred or more in number, and led by the Monkslayer himself, had been pressing Dunwoodie hard. The robber chief, carrying a sword and wearing the steel cap and breast-plate of a knight, stood forth from all shelter, commanding and exhorting his followers, apparently with no fear at all of flying shafts and quarrels. The men of Dunwoodie Manor fought from behind trees and rocks; and most of them had quilted, leathern jackets; but they were no match in archery, for the outlaws, many of whom, by virtue of their skill with the long-bow, had lived for years in the forest and never lacked for venison or greatly feared the sheriff and his men. Half a dozen Dunwoodie archers already lay weltering on the leaves, struck through throat or face with cloth-yard shafts; and only one or two of the robber knaves had been likewise served. Our coming, however, changed all in a twinkling.

Mountjoy struck the outlaws on one flank just as Lionel of Montmorency came down upon the other. In the time a man would need to run a furlong's length, a score or more of the varlets were slain by shafts and cross-bow quarrels or by the swords of our men-at-arms, fifty more had clasped their hands above their heads in token of surrender, and the Monkslayer and the remainder of his crew had taken flight toward the center of the forest.

My father, who had been chosen leader by the other n.o.bles, now called a halt and sent out a half dozen messengers to right and left to see and report to him the state of our cordon. Some of these returned in half an hour with their news, while others made the entire circuit of the forest, bearing Lord Mountjoy's commands for the reforming and tightening of the skirmish line and for the delaying of further advance till he should give the word. Since the scattering of the main body of the robbers a number of the fugitives had been creeping back with their hands tightly clasped over their heads and begging for quarter. It was my father's thought that, in a day's time, these desertions from the outlaw band would be so many that the task of surrounding and taking the remainder and the Monkslayer himself would be a light one.

At two o'clock Sir Geoffrey joined us with thirty of his men. The main body he had left under old Hubert on the other side of Blackpool. He was aching for a sight of the outlaws, and deemed our chances of encountering them again better than those along the line he had been guarding. Sir Geoffrey had grown brown and st.u.r.dy in the summer just past, and had added near an inch to his stature. Now he handled his cross-bow like a skilled archer, and was soon in eager talk with Cedric over the practice at moving marks.

Our camp was made in a fair and pleasant glen, some two or three miles from Blackpool. We had eaten of the bread and meat in our pouches, and sat at ease about our camp fires, my father having well seen to it that sentinels were posted against any sortie of the enemy. Suddenly one of these, half a furlong away in the wood, called out to us and pointed down a pathway to where it crossed a stream a bowshot below our camp.

There were approaching two men in the Lincoln green, and bearing a cloth of white which had been tied to a rough pole standard.

"Ha!" cried Squire Dunwoodie, "here come two of the varlets with a message. We will hear it; and if we like it not, will hang them up to yonder limb."

"Nay!" cried my father, angrily, "we shall do no violence to bearers of a flag of truce, be they honest men or thieves. 'Tis like the Monkslayer begs for mercy; but whate'er his message, the bearers of it shall return to him unscathed."

The envoys now approached and, bowing low before Lord Mountjoy, delivered to him a folded parchment. My father bent his brows upon this for a moment, then exclaiming in wrath, bade me read it to the a.s.sembled company. These were the words of the scroll:

"To Robert, Lord of Mountjoy, Geoffrey, Heir of Carleton and other worshipful lords and gentlemen:

"Know that my men have this day taken prisoner, and now securely hold for ransom Elizabeth, Lady of Carleton with two of her attendants. Some three score of my greenwood rangers are now held captive by you, if indeed you have not already done violence upon them. These friends and followers of mine I now ask that you freely release, without injury or mutilation, and that they go free before the sunrise of to-morrow. Also that you then withdraw all your armed forces from Blackpool Forest. Then shall the Lady and her attendants likewise depart without harm from me or mine. If so be you refuse my terms, then when the sun is one hour high you shall receive a messenger from me who will bear with him the left hand of the aforesaid Lady of Carleton.

If by sunset of to-morrow my men have not been suffered to freely return, another messenger shall bring you the lady's right hand.

"My fastness you shall never take. If you attempt it, at the first alarm the prisoners shall die. Enough is said to make plain my will. Those who have had dealings with me will tell you that my word for good or for ill I always keep.

"_William of Tyndale_, Called by some the Monkslayer."

"Oh, the murderous varlets!" cried Sir Geoffrey; and I thought it no shame to him that tears streamed down his face, "they will cut off her hands. 'Twere better far that they slew her outright. Oh! to have that b.l.o.o.d.y villain for a moment within sure aim I would willingly die the instant after."

"How could she have been taken?" asked Lord Mountjoy.

"I mind me now," replied Geoffrey, wringing his hands in misery, "she ever went on Sat.u.r.days to tend my brother's grave at Lanton, two miles from our gates and on the forest's edge. She was used to take an ample guard; but to-day I have taken nearly all our men-of-arms for this expedition. She liked it not that I should come; and now she has ventured forth without escort and to my everlasting sorrow. Oh, that _b.l.o.o.d.y_ villain!"

"Hush, Sir Geoffrey," said my father quickly, his face working in sympathy with the lad's sore distress, "they shall not harm thy lady mother. If need be, and no other way will serve, we will e'en release our prisoners and thus pay her ransom."

A mutter of discontent from some of the other leaders followed this, and Dunwoodie spoke full surlily:

"Seven of my good yeomen have already been slain in this quarrel; divers of our friends have lost men also, and Lord Pelham hath been borne homewards with an arrow wound that came near to being mortal. Shall we have nothing for all this but the freeing of these varlets?"

"What would'st thou do then, Dunwoodie,-leave the Lady of Carleton in the hands of the outlaws?"

Dunwoodie only growled in reply; and soon my father spoke again, this time to the outlaw messengers:

"Go to your chief," he said, "and say that we consider his offer, but that if the Lady of Carleton or her attendants be harmed one whit, we will hunt him and all his followers to the death e'en if that hunting takes a thousand men and a year's campaigning. Let him look to it."

The messengers bowed again and made their way into the deeps of the forest. My father and the n.o.bles that were there gathered about the camp fire in deep discussion of this sore dilemma.

CHAPTER VIII-"THE FORTRESS OF THE MONKSLAYER"

Cedric plucked at my sleeve and drew me aside.

"Thou and Sir Geoffrey come with me a little," he whispered, "I have somewhat to say on this."

Quickly I sought out Geoffrey, and led him away into the bracken in which Cedric had already disappeared. A bow-shot away from the camp we came up with him.

"Sir Richard," he said, speaking far more quickly than was his wont. "I have a thought of the whereabouts of this fastness that the robber speaks of in his letter."

My heart leaped within me. "Hast thou, Cedric?" I cried. "If any one of all our company should know, it would be thou who art native to these woods and knowest them as the very deer that run them."

"Aye," he replied shortly, "I believe 'tis not two miles hence. What say'st thou? Shall we reconnoiter?"

"With all my heart," I answered.

Geoffrey drew his cross-bow cord and placed a bolt in groove. "Lead on, Cedric," he said in a low voice. "I will follow thee if 'tis to a lion's den."

"Come then," replied Cedric, and moved away through the underwood.

He took a roundabout course to avoid our own sentries and their questions which might be hampering. In five minutes we had pa.s.sed the line where a little ravine ran between the posts of two of the archers who stood on guard, and were hurrying through the wood, crouching for shelter behind trees and rocks and crossing the more open s.p.a.ces in stooping runs lest we encounter the arrows of the outlaws. We saw none of our enemies, however, and in an hour were on a deeply wooded hillside amidst huge rocks and brawling streams, half a league and more from our camp fires.

Now we knew from the added caution of our leader that we approached the spot he suspected as the fortress of the outlaws. He crouched and crawled like a serpent, and fully as silently, turning to us from time to time to lay a finger on his lips. At last he paused at the foot of a huge old oak that yet bore most of its leaves, and motioning us not to follow, quickly drew himself up among the branches.

For half a minute he lay on a great limb six yards above the ground and peered obliquely down the hillside at a point where we could see naught but a little stream that issued from between huge ledges. Then his face lighted up of a sudden, and he looked down to us and beckoned us to join him.

This we managed with no more noise than might well be covered by the rustling of the oak leaves, and soon lay on the limb beside Cedric and, peering out betwixt the branches, beheld that to which his finger pointed.

There was a narrow pathway which led up between the ledges; and, at a bend in this where they were concealed from any in the wood below, stood two tall archers in Lincoln green, with axes in their belts, long bows in hand and arrows ready notched. They neither saw nor heard aught of us, and we might have fired on them with goodly chance of slaying one or both; but Cedric now motioned us down to the ground again and soon joined us beneath the tree.

Without a word he retraced his steps through the forest; and by sundown we stood again amongst the ferns in the place where he had first revealed his thought. Then he spoke again:

"'Tis e'en as I thought. The Monkslayer hath his fastness in a wide cavern at the head of yonder gully. There is no approach save by that winding path you saw where half a dozen men might well stop a thousand.

He thinks to guard my Lady Carleton there until her ransom be paid. And whether even then he will let her go unharmed we know not."

Sir Geoffrey ground his teeth in rage.

"Hast thou any plan?" I asked of Cedric.

"Aye," he replied, "though 'tis something ticklish; and if it fail, 'twill be an ill chance indeed."

"Say on, Cedric," said Geoffrey, eagerly.

"This is my thought," said Cedric, "we have till to-morrow's sunrise before any harm shall befall thy lady mother. Now, it would be disastrous to attack the fastness openly; but it may be that with two score of swordsmen, creeping on them just before the dawn, we can take them by surprise. Your archer is all at disadvantage in fighting at arm's length; and if such a force can reach the cavern's mouth, I warrant we s.n.a.t.c.h away the prisoners almost before they are aware. The cave is broad but not deep. I remember it full well. There is no room in it for hiding."

"But Cedric!" I cried, "how shall we reach the cave's mouth without alarm? Hast thou forgotten the two sentries in the lower pathway?"

Cedric smiled broadly.