"Yes, Monsieur; and I have left a trusty man to send us word if it is altered."
"He is not likely to change his route?"
"There is no reason for it, mon capitaine, and our men are watching every road."
"Good! Your news is welcome, Sebald. Go and eat; I will consult with Monsieur le Lieutenant here; you shall have your orders by and by."
Two or three men left the room, and the captain was alone with his lieutenant and Harry. The latter had already heard enough to set all his wits on the alert. The conversation that ensued, though carried on by both the speakers in continuance of a former discussion, gave Harry little trouble to understand. It was evident that the marauders under Captain Aglionby's lead were planning to intercept Prince Eugene on his way to meet Marlborough, and Harry listened with a flutter at the heart as all the details were arranged. The ambuscaders, divided into three bands, were to station themselves at a point about two miles north of the wayside inn, where the road narrowed. Two of the bands were to conceal themselves in the woods on either side of the road, the third some distance behind them, towards the inn, to cut off any escape rearwards.
"Monsieur le Prince will sleep hard to-morrow," said Aglionby with a chuckle, when he had arranged the composition of the bands. "Now, as we must start in an hour or two, do you go down and rouse the men; I will follow in a minute and give them their orders. What sort of night is it?"
"Dull, with a threat of rain."
"Ah! we shall want our cloaks. Well, rouse the men; our bird will have his feathers clipped long ere this to-morrow."
Harry had gone cold at the mention of the cloaks, and gripped his pistol. But the lieutenant went from the room without disturbing him, and Aglionby shortly afterwards followed. Harry heaved a silent sigh of relief, waited until the sound of his footsteps had quite died away, then left his hiding-place and hastened to the staircase.
He was in no doubt what to do. To descend, now that the garrison was awakened, would be to court instant detection. The alternative was to go higher up the keep, and endeavour to find some way of escape over the ruined battlements. He mounted a few steps; the moon had risen, and her light, fitfully shining between masses of flying scud in the sky, lit up the staircase through the narrow openings at intervals in the wall. A few steps more, and on his right Harry saw a low doorway, this also without a door, leading directly on to the battlements. He peered up the outer wall of the keep, and saw that a sentinel at the top must almost certainly descry a figure moving along below. But escape he must; Prince Eugene must be warned in time, and Urach was several miles away. He longed for a friendly cloud to obscure the moon while he made a dash; and, pat to his wish, a dark mass of thunderous density cut off every gleam. Without another moment's delay Harry sprang on to the broken masonry, and, taking sure foothold in his stocking feet, ran towards a tower at the left-hand corner of the enceinte, hoping there to find an exit. The upper part of the tower was almost wholly in ruins, but the lower part was in good preservation, and to his disappointment Harry found that the only doorway led into the courtyard, in which he already heard the bustle of preparation. There was nothing for it but to pursue his way along the battlements to the tower at the right-hand rear corner. Entering this, he discovered a postern on the outer wall. It was twenty feet above the summit of a steep slope leading to the level ground a hundred yards away. Harry looked out, and saw that below the postern the masonry had crumbled and fallen, and was now covered with undergrowth and ivy clinging to the tower wall. To make his descent here he would have to risk a broken limb, perhaps a broken neck, but there was no other means of exit that he could discover, and it was necessary that he should get quickly away with Max and the landlord before the marauding band rode out. Clinging to a strong tendril of ivy, he leapt on to a precarious corner of broken brickwork, lost his footing, checked his fall by clutching at a shrub, found a firmer foothold a little below, and so made the complete descent to the edge of the slope, where he stayed his progress by again grasping the ivy.