CHAPTER XIV
THE FOREST RANGER
Herman stood in silence far on into the night. He watched the soldiers pass by continually on the grass slope, and saw as well a little army of retainers go down to the river to help in bringing up the goods that had been taken from the Marburg. He was eager to know whether among the booty brought up to the castle any of Tyndale's bales of printed sheets were there, for, if so, then all the toil of those past weeks had gone for nothing. The last load passed over the drawbridge, the portcullis dropped as the last man entered the gate, and then silence followed.
Herman had missed nothing, and he breathed with intense relief when he found that no such load had been carried into the robber's stronghold. On that count, indeed, Tyndale was not the loser.
But more important still was the fate of the prisoner.
Herman watched the castle walls as they stood there, grey and grim in the moonlight. The feeling grew upon him that Tyndale's position was a hopeless one, for this stronghold was impregnable, a death-trap from whence no prisoner could hope to escape. The towers and curtains bristled with gleaming lances and polished helmets of fighting men. What chance, then, was there for rescue or escape for anyone shut up in the stronghold of that robber noble who feared neither God nor man, who scouted all human laws, and laughed—so common rumour had it—at the bare suggestion of mercy?
Herman was puzzled to know what a man like Schouts meant to do with Tyndale, and why he had singled him out while all others on board the Marburg were allowed to go free. The Reformer's religion could have no weight with him, for he was known all the country round to scoff at anything religious, and heresy was no more obnoxious to him than the extremest orthodoxy. It was impossible that the master of the robber den had any care, or even any hate, for the Protestantism that was causing so much controversy in Europe.
Could it be possible that Schouts thought to hold Tyndale for ransom? He was too poor to find two or three hundred pieces of silver, leave alone as many golden crowns, before he would be allowed to go free. Herman knew how poor he was. If he told his story to the lord of the castle, it would be the same story he had told in Herman's home—that he was possessed of nothing, that his poverty was like the Saviour's who had no home wherein at night to rest His tired head. The money on which he lived, and with which he paid for the printing of his Bible, was not his own. He was being supplied with it by some godly English merchants who, caring a great deal for the so-called "new learning," were placing the means within the scholar's reach, enabling him to live without want while he translated the Scriptures into the English tongue.
With money in some shape or form, as the one great want of this notorious bandit, Schouts would scorn the thought of counting William Tyndale a prize, who could at the most give him, when he surrendered all he had, a few gold pieces. Herman sat on the trunk of a fallen pine tree, and, burying his face in his hands, tried to think out this incomprehensible thing, that Schouts should think it worth his while to hold William Tyndale as a prisoner.
He was puzzling his brain over this when he heard some sounds behind him, as of someone moving about among the trees. A deadly fear swept through him, and, putting his hand to his belt, he gripped the handle of his dagger. It might be some wild beast prowling, getting at the horse, perhaps, or coming for himself. Or it might be one of Schouts' men, who would run him through if he saw him, or raise a loud outcry, bringing soldiers out of the castle to carry him there as a prisoner.