The archer was as cool as the captain.
“I cannot give him up,” he said. “You will have to take him at your risk.”
There was no more said. The captain stepped aside as though he would leave. He uttered a word to his men. They rushed forward. Before we could put ourselves on guard, or before one of the archers could string his bow, the table was sent flying across the room. They came in. They covered us three or four to each one of us. To have shown resistance would have been the height of folly.
In less time than it takes to tell we were bound hand and foot and huddled along the wall at the far end of the room. When all was finished the captain stood before us twirling his mustache.
“You almost got through,” he said to me. “Well, my lad. In another day you’ll be at the end of your wanderings for a long, long time. For when you’ll get out of the fortress of my lord De Marsac, you’ll be an old man.”
With that he bade his men take us and tie us to the horses.
CHAPTER XXV
FRIENDS AND ENEMIES
It was at the break of day when we came to the inn which we had mistaken for the Inn of The Cross-Roads. It was well after ten in the morning when we were led captives to the horses of the men who had taken us.
They tied us with long ropes—the one end around our waists, the other to the pommels of the saddles. We were to go on foot between the riders the whole distance of two or three days’ journey like the prisoners of chain gangs on their way to the galleys.