The unspoken question was answered quickly. Two men came along the lower deck, and between them walked a bearded man.
It was William Tyndale.
He did not walk cravenly, although he moved slowly and with bowed head. The soldiers, with their swords drawn, took him to Schouts, whose weapon-point rested on the deck. Something was said, although Herman heard no sound of voices, and the robber lord, turning his back on his prisoner, walked to the ship's side, the prisoner following. One by one the men came down the rope-ladder into a boat, Schouts first, then Tyndale, and after him the two soldiers. As soon as they were seated, the boat was pulled to the landing-place.
Herman hurried to the spot where he had stood for his first glimpse of the grass slope. It was in his mind that he might see Tyndale more closely, and who could tell whether, in God's mercy, something might happen whereby he might effect his escape? It was a wild hope, but he did not set it aside.
He passed the hollow where the horse stood quietly and tiredly, and reached the place just as Tyndale made his way among the heaps of pirated merchandise. There were half a score of armed retainers about him now, and the hope of rescue passed.
Looking out on the river, while Tyndale was kept standing to wait for further commands, Herman saw the sailors moving away from the spot where they had been penned in by the soldiers. He heard the sound of the winch, as they slowly raised the anchor which had been dropped on Schouts' demand, and before long the sails were bellying in the wind, and the ship moved up the stream.
A call came on the night air, and the company, of which Tyndale was the centre, began to move. He came slowly, as though he were ill, but the soldiers, apparently realising this, suited their pace to his. Schouts moved up the slope without waiting, but halted close to where Herman stood, to call back to the men to begin to carry the spoil to the castle.
Tyndale drew level with Herman's standing spot, and, scarce knowing why, the young man went in and out among the trees and bushes, anxious to watch the prisoner. It was a perilous venture, for a false step might cause him to make some sound, and the captain of Tyndale's guard, expecting an attack, might send some of his men into the forest to search. It could scarcely mean less than death if they found him, and what excuse could he make but this, that, having occasion to pass on through the forest, he had found his way barred by the soldiers? They would laugh his explanation to scorn, perhaps, and run him through with a sword or carry him to one of the dungeons in the castle.
The castle gate was reached at last. The drawbridge was already down, but the portcullis had to be raised before any of the party could pass in. Herman so stood that as the moonlight fell on the face of the prisoner he saw how he cast a wistful look around him, as though this might be the last he would ever have beneath God's open heavens. Hopelessness, too, so Herman thought, was on the tired man's face, and the traces of bitter disappointment because the work on which he had been engaged might never be completed.
When Tyndale stood at the drawbridge, waiting for it to be raised, Herman heard sounds behind him, like the stealthy movements of men, and felt alarmed for his own safety. But another idea came. Was it possible that some were approaching with the intention of attempting Tyndale's rescue? But who would be so mad when, at the clangour of the castle bell, a hundred armed men would be on the spot?