"Thou didst not speak so to me," said the traitor, "when thou wouldst have me do this deed. It was then, 'Good Robert Sadler,' and 'I will reward thee well.' Naught didst thou say of my head answering my failure to obey thy will." Then he rode on as he had been commanded.
He now saw that he had betrayed her ladyship and her son for naught, and his dejection thereat was plainly visible. But presently he sat upright in triumph as he remembered his plan, which he had for the moment forgotten,—to betray Hugo into their hands and keep back Josceline for himself to deliver to the king. How he was to accomplish this difficult thing he did not know, but, in his ignorance, he imagined it might easily be done.
Sir Thomas and his aid were watching him. "The knave meaneth to play us false," observed the aid. "See how he sitteth and rideth in triumph."
"His head answereth for it if he doth," returned Sir Thomas, fiercely.
And now they had all arrived at the edge of the wood and the sun was down. "Set forward across the open, sirrah," commanded Sir Thomas, "and see that thou fail not in thine office."
The traitor ground his teeth in rage, but outwardly he was calm as, putting his horse to the trot, he advanced toward the great gate and wound his horn. "Now may the old warder show more than his usual caution," said Robert Sadler. "My head is likely to fall whether we get in or whether we be kept out. And it were pleasant to see these villains foiled in their desires." The old warder, obeying the instructions of William Lorimer, beyond keeping the traitor waiting a quarter of an hour, by which delay the darkness desired by William Lorimer drew so much the nearer, having answered the summons, let down the bridge with unaccustomed alacrity of motion. In accordance with the same instructions, he kept his back to the direction from which the troop were expected to come, and he seemed quite as ready to parley after the bridge was down as even Sir Thomas could have desired.
"The warder groweth doltish," observed Sir Thomas, as he prepared to set forward.
"Mayhap," answered the aid.
"What meanest thou by 'mayhap'?" demanded Sir Thomas.
But by this time the whole troop were in motion and making a rush for the bridge. They gained it; they were across it, sweeping Robert Sadler before them, and within the walls before the sluggish old warder had seemed to see what was happening. They were well across the outer court before they noticed the strange air of emptiness that seemed to have fallen on the place. They stormed into the inner court; and here, too, all was silence. And then they turned on Robert Sadler. "Art thou a double traitor?" demanded Sir Thomas.