She pointed to the pile on which she replaced the sheet she had been reading. "I only ask because of what that heretic hunter said, and especially after I have seen him and that other man in the street gazing at our home."
There was silence. No sound came until a few moments later the cathedral bell boomed out the hour with slow and heavy strokes.
"Can we not destroy all this, father?" Margaret asked, when the last sound of the bell came; and she crossed the floor to where her father stood in dumb perplexity. She laid her hand on his shoulder and looked into his face with glistening eyes.
"Destroy God's Word, my child?" he asked. "That were cowardice. It would be like a man throwing down his cross because the crowd was threatening. The Word of God is far too precious; but if you are ready to help, we can make these papers fit for removal, so that if Cochlaeus came he would not find them."
"If I am ready, father?" she asked reproachfully. "How could you question it? I am more than ready. Tell me what to do."
She set the lamp down on the printing-press, and waited to be told.
For long hours, on through the dark night, she toiled with him, putting the precious sheets in bundles, and covering them with strong paper, that none might see their contents. The great bell of the cathedral boomed out twelve slow and heavy strokes at midnight, and the task had barely begun. They never thought of time, and scarcely heard the strokes, for here was a matter of life and death—an endeavour to hide these folios from the hunters of heresy, and, as Margaret felt while she toiled on feverishly, to save her father from the torments of the Inquisition.
The bell boomed out a solitary note and the work was not yet done. Again and again Margaret paused to listen. She thought she heard footsteps—the rattle of steel, the sharp word of command, and then a noise on the street door; but it was her fancy, and her father assured her so when she spoke about it.
Again the strokes boomed on the night air—two. They came an hour later—three. But not until the fourth stroke sounded and the city settled again into silence was the work ended.
"What next, father?" Margaret asked, sitting down on one of the bundles, too weary to stand after the long night of strain.