“And do you remember,” went on Emlyn, “that you told me that there the carp were so big and fat because just at this place ‘neath the drawbridge the Abbey sewer—the big Abbey sewer down which all foul things are poured—empties itself into the moat, and that therefore I would eat none of those fish, even in Lent?”
“Aye, I remember. What of it?”
“Thomas, did I hear you say that the powder you sent for had come?”
“Yes, an hour ago; six kegs, by the carrier’s van, of a hundredweight each. Not so much as we hoped for, but something, though, as the cannon has not come—for the King’s folk had none—it is of no use.”
“A dark night, a ladder with a plank on it, a brick arched drain, two hundredweight, or better still, four of powder set beneath the gate, a slow-match and a brave man to fire it—taken together with God’s blessing, these things might do much,” mused Emlyn, as though to herself.
Now at length they took her point.
“They’d be listening like a cat for a mouse,” said Bolle.
“I think the wind rises,” she answered; “I hear it in the trees. I think presently it will blow a gale. Also, lanterns might be shown at the back where the breach is, and men might shout there, as though preparing to attack. That would draw them off. Meanwhile Jeffrey Stokes and I would try our luck with the ladder and the kegs of powder—he to roll and I to fire when the time came, for being, as you have heard, a witch, I understand how to humour brimstone.”
Ten minutes later, and their plans were fixed. Two hours later, and, in the midst of a raving gale, hidden by the pitchy darkness and the towering screen of the lifted drawbridge, Emlyn and the strong Jeffrey rolled the kegs of powder over planks laid across the moat, into the mouth of the big drain and twenty feet down it, till they lay under the gateway towers! Then, lying there in the stinking filth, they drew the spigots out of holes that they had made in them, and in their place set the slow-matches. Jeffrey struck a flint, blew the tinder to a glow, and handed it to Emlyn.
“Now get you gone,” she said; “I follow. At this job one is better than two.”