Engel sprang to his feet, overturning the stool, and paced the floor, walking round by the wall and past the door and window like a caged beast, back and forth again, as though to walk off his excitement.
"I mean to try it!" he exclaimed. "I've been kneeling a lot to-day in the forest to pray about it, and I believe God has shown me the way. It would be woe to me if I did not do my best for the good man after that."
He was moving about restlessly, not pausing while he spoke.
"I can't imagine how you mean to get inside the castle," Herman said, incredulous. The scheme was such a preposterous one.
Engel went to a cupboard on the farther side of the room, and, feeling about in the darkness, he brought out a sheet of paper, which he smoothed out on the table.
"I'll get a light," he said, and when the candle was burning he spoke again. "You are both able to lay some claim to scholarship, I suppose; so you will understand this plan with a bit of explanation. It's a plan of Schouts' castle, but he doesn't know I've got it, or he might hang me over his gate."
He bent over the sheet when he had covered the window, so that none might look in from outside. Then, with his forefinger, while the others bent over, he opened out the scheme more fully. He showed them the point where he would go in, where he would go when he was once inside, and how he meant to get out with William Tyndale, and the others, with the plan so plainly before them, saw that the scheme was possible, provided there were no accidents to mar it.
But it was a desperate venture, to say the least, for three men to pit themselves against the robber lord, and expect to snatch their friend from the clutches of one who had scores of servitors, every one a trained fighting man who had no fear of God or man, and, like the Norse warriors who had in them the Berserker spirit, would go to the battle when the call came, and fight with frenzied and merciless fury. The bare suggestion was little less than madness.
After bending over the table so long, the forester straightened himself and gazed down at the crumpled sheet of paper which was resting on the table among the crumbs and broken bread which had not been swept away. Herman and Roye glanced up at him, and saw the resolute look on his face and the total absence of fear. The first to speak was Herman.
"Otto Engel."