“What can it mean?” said Redwald. “All is silent as the grave.”
“No; there is some one laughing at us,” said Elfric.
A peal of merry laughter was heard within.
Redwald was thoroughly enraged, and seizing an axe with his own hand, he set the example of applying it to the gate, but without any result save to split a few planks, while the iron framework, designed by Dunstan himself, who was clever at such arts, held as firmly as ever.
Unprovided with other means of forcing it, the besiegers had recourse to fire, and gathering fuel with some difficulty, they piled it against the gate. Shortly the woodwork caught, and the whole gate presently yielded to the action of the fire; the iron bars, loosened by the destruction of the woodwork, gave way, and the besiegers rushed into the quadrangle. Here, all was dark and silent, not a sound to be heard or a light seen.
“What can it mean? Have they fled? You all heard the laughter!”
“There it is again.”
The boisterous and untimely mirth had begun just within the abbot’s lodgings, and the doorway at the foot was immediately attacked. It presently yielded, and Redwald, who had obtained a good notion of the place, rushed with his chief villains to the chamber he knew to be Dunstan’s; yet he began to fear failure, for the absence of all the inmates was disheartening. No, not all, for there was the loud laughter within the very chamber of the abbot.
The door was fastened securely, and while the axes were doing their destructive work upon it, the mocking laughter was again heard. Redwald had become so enraged that he mentally vowed the direst vengeance upon the untimely jester, when the door burst open and he rushed in.
“Where is he? Surely there was some one here?”