And this seemed strange enough information to give the Deity. But without doubt its sincerity carried it further heavenward than many an empty Credo. For the God who made love does not, like Jove, laugh at lovers' vows.
[CHAPTER IV]
THE DUEL AT THE INN OF BREDERODE
So, thinking with all his might upon the adorable pout of his lady's lips, that right loyal lover Walter Gordon strode, not without fear, but all the braver for mastering it, into the dark passage which stretched straight before him, gloomy as a sea cave at midnight. Doors still blacker yawned on either side of him like the mouths of huge cannon. He held his candle aloft, and paused a moment at each, striving with all his might to penetrate the silence that reigned within. But the faint circle of illumination hardly passed beyond the threshold. Wat, as he held his breath and listened, only heard the rats scuttle and the mice cheep in the oaken wainscoting.
It was with a feeling of chill water running icily down his back that he passed each black cavern, glancing warily over his shoulder lest he should catch the downward stroke of an arm in the doorway, or see the candle-light flash on the deadly blade of the Killer's butchering knife.
It was nerve-shaking work. The sweat, chill as the clammy mist of the night, began to pour down Wat's face, and his flesh grew prickly all over as though he had been stuck full of pins.
Unless something happened, he felt that in another moment he must shriek aloud. He stopped and listened. Somewhere near him he felt sure he could distinguish the sound of breathing. It was not the heavy, regular to-and-fro respiration of unconscious sleep, but rather the quicker and shorter breathing of one who has recently undergone severe exertion, and whose heart still runs fast ahead.
Wat stood and listened. The sound came from half-way up the stairs, out of a room with a door which opened wider than the others, and which now stood, gaping black and ominous, directly before him. Wat could hear the sound of feet behind him, cautiously shuffling on the flags of the doorway, and by this sign he knew that his three ruffians were there waiting for him with the weapons of their trade naked and deadly in their hands. He was trapped, taken between the brutal, dastard butchers behind him and the unknown but more terrible breathers in the dark above him.
Yet his very desperation brought a compensating calmness. He pressed his arm against his side, where, in an inner pocket, he carried the papers he had come to deliver. He undid the button of his cloak, and let it fall to the ground to clear his sword-arm. Then, bending forward like a runner straining to obtain good pace at the start of a short race, he went up the stairs steadily and warily till he had reached the door of the room. His candle was almost blown out with the quickness of his motion. It flickered low, and then caught again, as Wat stepped nimbly within, and made the point of his sword circle about him to clear himself a space against attack.