For his position was precarious. He had escaped for the time; but he was like a rat in a trap—able neither to go backwards nor forwards.
The voice of Strange interrupted his anxious thoughts.
"Guard the gates!" he ordered. "Come with me, you men, and search the cell." Up the stairs they stamped and their footsteps died away.
Rob imagined them tearing up the stone steps to his cell. He could almost see Strange peering through the window with its filed bars.
Suddenly he heard him shout from far above him as though his head were thrust out of the window:
"There he is! There he is!" It sent a shiver through his limbs.
But no one approached the cart.
Instead, the excitement grew even more intense, and the courtyard about the cart became thronged with hurrying soldiers. On the outer walls he heard muskets firing, and cries of "There they go!" as though they aimed at men upon the hill. It was all very baffling and mysterious.
Was Muckle John attempting a rescue by force of arms? Rob lay very still, and then his perplexity was set at ease, for he heard a voice he knew well call from a window some twenty feet above him:
"Vot is it, Strange?" and Strange, despite his hurry replied: