Then he that had been our prisoner found voice at last and began to murmur broken words of thanks and to encumber his new found liberty with oaths of lifelong fealty to ourselves. But Cedric again checked him with uplifted hand.
“Hark!” he whispered, “what was that sound?”
For a moment all three of us stood silent and breathless, listening to the wind in the branches without and the faint snapping of coals on the hearth. Then came the noise again,—a long drawn, baying howl of a hound on a scent.
“Some of our neighbors hunt the deer,” I said.
“Nay,” answered Cedric quickly, “’tis no deer-hound. ’Tis a far deeper note.”
Meanwhile the face of Egbert had turned an ashen gray, and now his limbs shook with very terror.
“’Tis the bloodhounds of Gilroy,” he gasped. “My lord ever keeps two or three for just such use as this. They follow on my track.”
Then from a window we saw, a furlong off in the open wood, two huge brown hounds that ran with noses close to earth and upon a path that led straight toward the lodge.
Cedric seized his cross-bow again from Egbert’s hands.
“Get thee back within,” he commanded, “I will soon stop the coursing of these blood beasts.”