Impending very near, since he had divined the truth when he said to himself that they knew of his presence already. He saw one--the female, he thought, since she was longer and leaner than the other--slowly lift her head as a snake lifts its head ere it strikes--the snout raised sniffing towards the roof of the hall, the ears drooping to the paved floor. And the bloodshot eyes cast backwards, the shift of those eyes around the hall, proclaimed what would happen next. A roar of alarm, a warning to those who slumbered still.
"Away," Andrew muttered, "away!" and, as he spoke to himself, he slid swiftly along the wall and regained the copse.
Not a moment too soon! There came a deep, sharp yap from the dog; an instant after another from her mate, and then the roar from each throat. Almost it seemed to Andrew as he withdrew that he heard the patter of the great paws upon the flagged floor as the dogs rushed to the door; almost it seemed as though their great forms were hurled against it, they striving for egress.
And he heard other sounds ere he was gone from outside that door--those from the human throats within!
First the voice of the man he supposed to be Beaujos, shouting:
"Awake, you vagabonds, awake! Hark to the dogs! Unbar the door. Heaven and earth, there are some without! 'Tis sure! Unbar, I say."
Also, he heard cries from the men themselves, the clatter of their wooden-shod feet upon the flags--of this there was no doubt--a grating noise in the great lock, and a thumping sound as though some ponderous transverse wooden bar had been thrown back to admit of the door being opened.
And, from where he was, he could perceive now a vast body of light streaming out into, and mixing with, that of the moon, could hear the deep-mouthed bay of the hounds broken by short angry barks.
From where he was by this time, namely, passing swiftly down to the open spot where the three saplings grew, pushing branches large and small aside, trampling down the wet leaves and sodden grass, he prayed fervently that he might reach the spot outside where his horse stood ere they found him. For, brave man as he was, and ready to face a dozen, or a score, of human foes, his blood curdled in him at the thought of those ferocious fangs tearing him to pieces; the thought of the hot breath of the brutes in his face as they sprang at his throat and dragged him to the earth.
"Any number of men," he said, "and armed to the teeth I can face and laugh at, but five men and two hounds such as those---nay, I am no coward to avoid them."