"The tramp of horses!" continued Robin, "and of heavy ones too; but they are going from, not coming towards us. Ah! heard ye not that?"
He raised himself from the ground, and the neigh of a horse was borne to them on the blast. They both stood in breathless silence, the Buccaneer with his hand suspended over, but not touching, his sword-handle—Robin with open mouth and extended hands, as if the very movement of his limbs could destroy the quietness around, or impede the sound they watched for. Again the neigh was repeated, but more faintly, and evidently from a greater distance.
"Safe from one at least," said Robin, jumping in ecstasy, but yet speaking in a subdued voice. "I would know the neigh of that black steed amid a thousand; its tone is like that of a trumpet, mightiest among its kind. I feel as if the weight of a hundred stone was off my heart—don't you?"
Dalton replied not, for he was fearlessly striding towards the house, not, as before, sneaking among the bushes.
"Let us to the window, Captain," said Robin.
"Not I," he replied. "What care I for any of them now? I shall demand Walter from Sir Robert."
"You are foolhardy. What can be done quietly, ought to be done quietly. If we cannot succeed so, why dare both Sir Robert and Sir Willmott?"
"I believe you are right, though I hate sailing on a lee-shore. The open, open sea, for my money! Hark ye! Cecil dare not refuse me this."
"Or any thing else, I suspect—though I know not why," replied Robin, as he commenced climbing by the creeping plants to the prison-window, beneath which they now stood. "How delighted he will be to see my ugly face, poor fellow!"
Robin continued muttering broken sentences all the while he ascended, having previously arranged with the Buccaneer that he was to remain below. "Ah! firm footing this old ivy. There, now we are up!—Master Walter! Master Walter!—He sleeps behind that screen, I warrant me, little thinking of his faithful friends. So, so! the rust has done its duty. Strong room! strong walls they mean; but what signify strong walls without strong windows?—Good! There goes another, and another—better still! And now——"