It was a little past midnight, and the air was black and soft as velvet when two figures crept across the inner bailey and gained the outer court of the castle. Not easy was the journey for them, but feeling by hand and foot along the pave and the walls, Wulf led, his fingers never leaving the masonry, while Elise crept after him, holding fast by his sleeve.
One by one Wulf counted the buttresses of the wall, until one more would, he knew, bring them to the postern gate.
“Gotta Brent’s son followed me on watch here,” he whispered to Elise. “He is a sleepy fellow, and will not have got well settled to the tramp yet.”
“Thou’lt not harm him, Wulf?” she breathed back anxiously. “Ne’er again could I be happy if any hurt came to an innocent person through me.”
“Nay; let thy heart be easy,” replied Wulf. “I will but fix him in easy position for the good long sleep he loves. He were no fellow to be put on watch in time of danger.”
Just then the clank of metal came to their ears, and they knew that the sentinel was drawing near on his beat.
Close back they pressed into the deep shadow of the bastion, while Elise put both hands over her heart in an instinct to muffle its wild beating. It seemed to her straining ears to sound above the shuffle of coming steps and the rattle of the watchman’s armor and weapons.
Almost beside them, lantern in hand, the watch paused; but his body was between them and his light, and its rays did not shine into the bastion. After a moment he raised the staff which he carried and struck a sharp blow against the stones.
The sudden sound wrung from Elise a little outcry, which she checked on her very lips, as it were; but the sentry must have caught somewhat of it, for he bent toward them, and Wulf braced himself to spring upon him, when of a sudden a call rang out from the sentinel on the watch-tower, far adown the wall.
“One hour past midnight, and all’s well,” it said; and the watchman beside them took it up, bellowing forth the words until they sounded fair awful coming out of the darkness. From elsewhere—Wulf judged it to be the castle keep—the watch-cry sounded again, and ere it had clean died away Wulf gave a forward spring, catching the sentinel just as he was turning to walk adown his beat.