"'Tis most true," assented Hal. He would have much liked to explain that what saddened him was, not that she had counterfeited illness, but that she had counterfeited a willing response to his embraces. Why should she have thought it necessary to carry the pretence so far? A choked, blinded feeling came upon him. But he dared not succumb to it. Kit Bottle was looking on, awaiting orders, and the injured robber was crying for water. From the deceived, humiliated lover, Marryott became perforce the alert commander of besieged fugitives.
"This lady must be watched," he said to Kit. "Till I send Anthony to take your place see that she does not, by passing them this ladder, or by hanging curtains or such stuff from the window, give Barnet's men the means of climbing into the house. Nay, mistress, our watchman will not disturb your privacy. From the outer room he can look through the door to your window. Seest thou, Kit?—the ladder lying flat through the doorway will forbid her closing the door. If there come sign of her at the window, or meddling with ladder or door, then thou must invade her chamber, and do as may seem best. You are warned, madam!"
With a courteous bow he left her. Bottle established himself outside her door, squatting upon the ladder, his eye following its side-pieces across her room to the window.
In the hall, Marryott found Anthony Underhill listening passively to the door-knocks of Roger Barnet, which were accompanied by calls upon Sir Valentine Fleetwood to open in the queen's name. The Puritan assured Hal that the stable was now as strongly fortified as it had been ere his departure in quest of provisions. Marryott, thereupon, sent him to take Kit's place at Mistress Hazlehurst's door, and then despatched Oliver Bunch (who had with some surprise discovered himself to be still alive) with water for the wounded robber, and with instructions to care for the latter's injuries and for those of Tom and Francis.
Hal then made again the round of the house. Moreton, Hatch, and the least wounded of yesterday's deserters from Rumney, were at their original posts, to which Anthony had taken it on himself to order their return. Each man reported that his door had been tried from without, but that no violent attempt had been made to force entrance.
Coming back to the hall, Marryott saw Kit Bottle mounted on a trestle, and surveying the quadrangle through a clear place in a window.
"He has had his men dismount and the horses led away," said Kit, alluding, of course, to Roger Barnet. "He has set two guards, I think, at the front end of each wing, and two in the court. He is sitting on the edge of the fountain. He seems a little lame o' the leg."
"What think you is his intent?" asked Marryott, not risking to Barnet a possible glimpse of his face, for fear of an untimely undeceiving.
"'Tis for time to show. He will either attack or wait. But 'tis less like he will attack."