"It is all right, master. It is bolted on the inside. They have tried the bolts, and find they can move them;" and with these words, he at once stepped noiselessly out.
Oswald stood listening. Presently he heard the returning steps of the sentry. They came close up to the turret, and then suddenly ceased.
He at once hurried round. The sentry hung limp in Roger's grasp. Oswald bound his hands tightly, and twisted the rope three or four times round his body, and securely knotted it. Then he tied the ankles tightly together.
"I will lay him down," Roger whispered, when he had done so.
Oswald bent the man's legs and, trussing him up, fastened the rope from the ankles to that which bound the wrists. Roger now relaxed his grip of the man's throat, thrust a piece of wood between his teeth, and fastened it, by a string going round the back of the head. He then took off his steel cap, and laid it some distance away.
"That will do for him, master. I reckon that he will be an hour or two, before he will get breath enough to holloa, even without that gag."
The other man was captured as silently as the former had been. When he was bound, Roger said:
"Now for the hook, master."
"Here is the iron. It was too strong for me to bend."
Roger took it and, exerting his great strength, bent it across his knee. Then he took the coil of rope, and tied a knot at the end, and with some smaller cord lashed it securely along the whole length of the hook.