“You trust me, Master Ralph,” said the man; “and when Master Captain Purlrose finds who’s come, he will be surprised. We’ll hang him for a scarecrow at once, of course?”
“No: bring him here a prisoner, and my father will settle that.”
“Very well, sir. We’ll take him, dead or alive oh; but if I had my way, I’d like to turn him over to my mother and all the women him and his have robbed. Why, do you know, sir, night afore last the beggars carried off a pickle-tub and two feather beds. And they call themselves men.”
Nick Garth spat on the ground in his disgust, closed one eye as he looked at his young master, gave his mouth a sounding slap, and went round at once to garden, stable, and barns, to quietly enlist the little force, making each man swear secrecy, so that at nightfall not another soul save the initiated had the slightest inkling of what was going on, either at Cliff Castle or the Black Tor.
Chapter Twenty.
Allied Forces.
The crescent moon sank like a thin curve of light in the western sky soon after nine o’clock that night. At ten the last light disappeared at both places connected with the adventure, when Mark Eden lowered himself from his window on to the top of the dining-hall bay, and from thence to the ground.
Soon after, there was a faint whispering and chinking, and three dark figures, carrying swords and pikes, descended the steep zigzag to the bottom of the great tongue of rock, where six men were lying down waiting; and a few minutes later, all well-armed, they were tramping in single file through the darkness toward Steeple Stone. Their young leader, armed only with his sword, and wearing a steel morion of rather antiquated date, which could only be kept in place by a pad formed of a carefully folded silk handkerchief, was at their head; and in obedience to his stern command, not a word was spoken as they made for the appointed tryst.