Weak though he was, on life's borderland, as it seemed to his companions, there was a thrill of exultation in his voice. He spoke as one would speak who had unshaken confidence in the success of his mission.
Still watching him, they felt that his condition was serious. They saw in him a man capable of high and prolonged endurance, but the strain of the past few months, when he was compelled to remain in the house in hiding, foregoing exercise and recreation, and especially during these last few days, when he was seeking to get away from his would-be tormentors, had borne him down, and he had come to the end of his reserve strength. Yet, to their amazement, he was exultant and confident, and they realised in those moments of watching that William Tyndale was a man whose character had been matured in the hardest of all schools, annealed in the furnace, and not forgetful, although the chains were about his hands and feet, of the Hand that was strong beyond that of men, and had brought him out of the dungeon depths.
"Is my wallet all right, Herman?" Tyndale asked anxiously, too weak to look for himself; too weak, indeed, to lift his hand to feel for the strap across his breast.
Herman saw it hanging about his shoulders by the leather band, and told him it was there. He gently guided his hand so that he might feel it; then brought the wallet round for him to see, and have it in his lap. In spite of his chains, Tyndale hugged it to his bosom.
"I should have been bereft indeed if I had lost these treasures," he muttered. They were his stock-in-trade, as he had said at other times half humorously. His books were in the wallet—those precious volumes from whence he drew the material for his translated Bible.
But the watchers were anxious and perplexed, not knowing what next to do, now that they found Tyndale so near to collapse, and, in spite of his exultation and confidence, so near, as they thought, to death. What if, after having ventured so far, they had a dead man on their hands? Or if not that, how were they to get him away? And where should they lodge him until he grew stronger?
CHAPTER XVIII
IN THE CELL
When Margaret came to herself, after she had fallen in a senseless heap on the cavern floor, she found herself in darkness, and lying on some straw.
Sitting up, she began to link up slowly with the past, so that she recalled her desperate venture into the place which had so much in it to terrify her. With this came the remembrance of the voices she had heard. She recalled it all, and the dread returned, for surely she was lying in the same place, and her surroundings were distressing as before.