“She did call me an old fool last time, and slapped my face,” he muttered; “but that was only by way of showing how fond she was. Ha! it be terrifying work having to deal with such an arbitrary skipper as ourn.”
Gil still gazed at the window, thinking that if he had changed places with Sir Mark, and a dangerous foe had been in the field, a cordon of sentries would have been placed round the house for his love’s protection; whilst Sir Mark was evidently sleeping luxuriously, and dreaming, perhaps, of possessing his fair young bride. “Poor, befooled idiot!” said Gil to himself; “I do not envy him his morrow’s waking. Why, if I—. Pst! Wat, your sword.”
His left hand involuntarily flew to the silver whistle that hung at his neck, while his sword was raised readily, and turned aside a pass that grazed his ribs. For in an instant the bushes around them seemed alive with armed men, who rose in obedience to a call, and made for Gil and his old follower.
Wat was as much upon the alert as his leader, but he had not time to draw his sword. Not that it mattered, for the short ladder became a very effective weapon in the emergency. Raising it with both hands above his head, he poised it there for a moment, keeping it well ready, and then, darting it rapidly forward again and again, he drove it into the chests of three or four assailants, sending them crashing down amongst the bushes, as he kept them sufficiently distant to prevent them from reaching him with the points of their swords.
As the first blade gritted against that of Gil’s, he placed the whistle to his lips, and its note rang out shrilly on the midnight air, to be answered by the rush of feet over the little wooden bridge as his men came running up; and now there was nothing left but for the defenders of the house to be beaten back, the place itself to be forced, and Mace carried away.
“Swing the bridge!” cried a voice, which Gil recognised as that of Sir Mark. “They’re trapped now. Hollo, there! Lights, quick! Surrender, you dogs, in the King’s name.”
There was a creaking noise as the little bridge was swung round, and Gil felt that, far from being in sleepy indolence and safety, Sir Mark had not only been well on the alert, but had cleverly made his plans according to his own lights to entrap his rival and his followers when they came, attracted, as he felt that they would be, by the bait within the founder’s house.
“Poor fool!” muttered Gil, “if he thinks he can take us here.”
For his men came running to his side to group round where he and Wat were standing well at bay.