The Dean looked round again and, ignoring the Captain of the Guard, who yielded to his superior, he nodded to a soldier. The man came forward and, looking carefully, thrust in the point of his sword at the spot where the floor seemed to be moveable, and, lifting it, threw it back with a noisy clatter and a prodigious dust.
"Now we shall see!" cried Cochlaeus triumphantly, and he hurried down the steps. The Deacon of the Church of the Blessed Virgin had discarded his dignity in his eagerness.
Every pulse in Margaret throbbed wildly. She felt like falling in a fainting heap, but she controlled herself, and watched, to mark the fatal ending of this quest. Yet she marvelled to mark her father's ease.
As the last soldier moved down, and his head went out of sight, she was more amazed than ever to see him rub his hands, and his face broaden into a smile. She wondered whether he had suddenly gone mad with the strain of the last few days, and therefore he did not realise his danger.
Presently a soldier's head appeared, and his face, when it came in sight, had a whimsical look on it. So it was with the next, and he stamped his foot as his heavy boot touched the floor. He dropped his sword noisily into its scabbard, as if there would be no use for it.
The Dean came into view, impassive as before, unless one could interpret that peculiar look on his lean face as one of satisfaction because the quest had ended so. There was bewilderment in the Captain's face when he also emerged from the cellar.
Last of all came Cochlaeus, and his sinister face was red with wrath. As he stepped away from the ladder he swung round on Byrckmann, and spoke in a passionate tone.
"Why did you not say there was nothing here to connect you with that fellow Tyndale?"
"You put no question that I could so answer," was the quiet, but exasperating response. "You came to my shop, and without asking me anything, you said, 'We have come to search your premises.' You did not say for what, and since the Dean was here, a man whom I esteem, I offered no protest, although you have no authority in this city, and suffered you to have your way. You have had it."
While the soldiers left the house, Cochlaeus stamped to and fro, protesting against being made a laughing-stock.