HE WATCHED ONE OF THE MEN UNSHEATH HIS DIRK
AND MAKE A GESTURE SIGNIFICANT ENOUGH.
Down below the men had risen to their feet. He saw them standing in their own steam, their heads close together, and their beards wagging as they whispered. Then one by one they approached the stairway. A wild terror seized him at that. The soft pat of their brogues upon the rungs of the ladder and the creak of it under their weight was like to make him scream.
Starting back he stood upon the trap door in the empty hope that they would not be able to lift it. A moment, and he felt it give a faint heave under him. It was delivered gently, as though the man on the ladder suspected it would be stiff or difficult to push back.
And then there was absolute silence.
Did they suspect that he was awake? Rob listened intently. But what he heard was the innkeeper softly ordering them back, and at that moment there sounded outside in the night a man's voice calling.
Once more Rob lay upon the floor and peered below. Around the fire the men were sitting as before. In the doorway the innkeeper was standing with the firelight upon his back. Outside there was the humid noise of a horse losing its hold in sopping ground, and again a voice called—
"Can you give me shelter?"
With a backward glance the innkeeper disappeared, leaving those crouching figures utterly silent. To Rob a wild flash of hope flamed suddenly. Who could say but this might be a friend in distress?
He heard the innkeeper open the door in the byre below him and stall the horse; but he never moved in his eagerness to watch who should enter the place. Suddenly a man looked in at the group about the fire, and hesitated as though he wished himself back upon the road. Then, entering, he drew off his cloak.