And gliding out from the covert with that noiseless movement he had learned during his residence in the forest, he raced like a veritable shadow in the direction of the house.
He had reached the building rising black and grim against the darkening sky; he had almost laid his hand upon the knocker, intending to make known his presence and his peril, and demand admittance and speech with Master Robert Catesby, when forth from the shadows of the porch stepped a tall dark figure, and he felt a shiver of dismay run through him as a loaded pistol was levelled at his head.
"It is the spy again--the spy I have sworn to sweep from our path. False Trevlyn, thine hour has come!"
A puff of smoke--a loud report. Cuthbert had flung up his hand to shield his face, for the barrel was aimed straight at his temple. He was conscious of a sudden stinging pain in his wrist. A momentary giddiness seized him, and he stumbled and fell. A sardonic laugh seemed to ring in his ears. He thought he heard the banging of a door and the drawing of heavy bolts. Probably the man who had fired was so certain of his aim that he did not even pause to see how the shot had told.
"Your tongue will not wag again before the morrow!"
Those words seemed to be ringing in Cuthbert's ears, and then for a moment all was blackness and darkness, with a sense of distress and suffocation and stabs of sudden pain.
When he awoke from what he first thought had been a nightmare dream, he was puzzled indeed to know where he was, and for a while believed that he was dreaming still, and that he should soon awake to find himself in his little attic chamber in the bridge house. But as his senses gradually cleared themselves he became aware that he was in no such safe or desirable spot. He was lying on some cloaks in the bow of a large boat, which was being rowed steadily and silently up stream by four stalwart men. The daylight was gone, but so too was the fog, and the moon was shining down and giving a sufficient light. In the stern of the boat sat two other men, whose faces Cuthbert could dimly see, though their hats were drawn down over their brows. These faces did not seem entirely unfamiliar, yet he could not remember where it was he had seen them before. His senses were cloudy and confused. He felt giddy and exhausted. He had no disposition to try to move; but he soon found that even had he been so disposed he could have accomplished little. His feet were bound together by a cord, and his right hand was bound up and utterly powerless. He remembered the shot levelled at him in the garden of the river-side house, and felt certain that his wrist was broken.
And who were these men who were carrying him away captive, and what was their motive? He imagined that they must surely be those fierce pursuers who had striven to capture him upon the river, and who had followed him into the garden where he had hoped to hide himself from their malice. Doubtless they had found him as he lay in a momentary faint, and had borne him back to their boat; though what was their motive in thus capturing him, and whither they were now transporting him, he could not imagine. His mind was still confused and weak. Esther's words of warning seemed to mingle with the gurgle of the water against the bows of the boat. His temples throbbed, there was burning pain in his wounded arm; but the night wind fanned his brow, and brought with it a certain sense of refreshment.
Hitherto there had been unbroken silence in the boat, and the rowers had steadily plied their oars without uttering a word; but now that they were out in mid river, without the smallest fear of pursuit, far away from sight or sound from the shore, they paused as by common consent, and one of them suddenly said:
"Now, comrades, we must settle which it is to be. Are we to take him to Miriam or to Tyrrel?"