From behind came the noise of men shouting and the thud of quarrels impinging upon stout oak; the Doomsmen, hitherto in hiding, were making a diversion, in answer, doubtless, to a signal from their leader. A hundred gray-garbed men showed themselves in the open, coming from the shelter of the fir plantation back of the rickyards; they ran towards the open water gate, exposing themselves recklessly in their eagerness to reach it.
But the defenders were not to be surprised so easily, and Constans, glancing backward, saw that the drawbridge was already in the air and the gate closed. The outlaws, realizing that the surprise was a failure, and unwilling to brave the arrows sent whistling about their ears from the fighting platforms of the keep, fell back in some disorder. At the same moment a solitary figure appeared, emerging as though by magic from the solid wall of the keep—Sir Gavan himself, a father forgetful of all else but the peril of his children. He must have used the "Rat's-Hole" for egress; he hurried down the green slope, calling his daughter by name. All this Constans saw in that swift backward glance. Well, there was but one thing that he could do.
And Night knew it, too; brave little Night, how cleverly you forced yourself under the towering bulk of that brute of a blood-bay! A thunder of hoofs and they were in touch; Constans felt himself hurled into space; the bridle-reins of tough plaited leather were torn from his hands; Night and he were down.
The dust cloud cleared and the boy struggled up, although his head was still spinning from the shock of the encounter. Ten yards away lay the black mare with a broken foreleg. She was trying to rise, her eyes glazed with pain and her flanks heaving horribly.
The blood-bay had kept his feet and his master his saddle—a hardy pair, these two. But the desperate expedient had proved successful in that Issa was safe. Already Sir Gavan had her in his arms, and before the horseman had fully found himself the fugitives were under the shadow of the keep's walls.
The question of his own danger did not immediately concern Constans; he had no eyes for anything but Night lying there in her agony. His father had given him the horse when she was a foal of a week old, and Constans had broken and trained her himself. Well, she had served him faithfully, and in return he would show her the last mercy. His knife-sheath hung from his girdle; he drew out the blade and drove it home just behind the glossy black shoulder. Night shuddered and lay still. The knife had sunken deep, and Constans had to exert all his strength to withdraw it. The bare point of a rapier touched him meaningly on the arm; he stood up and faced his enemy.
The man on horseback laughed softly. "Oho, my young cockerel, it was but a touch of the gaff, and now that you are ready is reason sufficient why I should prefer to wait. But that neither of us may forget—" He bent down and caught Constans by the shoulders, turning him around and forcing him backward until his head rested against the blood-bay's withers. Two slashes of his hunting-knife and a tiny, triangular nick appeared on the upper part of the lad's right ear.
"That is my sign-manual of which I spoke to you an hour or more ago. It is Quinton Edge's mark, as all men know, and it brands whatever bears it as Quinton Edge's property. Some day I may deem it worth while to claim my own; until then you can be my caretaker, my tenant. What! no answer? And yet it is a generous offer, I think, considering how sore my arm has grown and how impertinently you behaved just now in interfering between me and a lady. Light of God! but she is a bewitching bundle of femineity. But twice, boy, have I seen her; hardly a dozen words have passed——"
He stopped abruptly and gazed hard at Constans. Then slowly:
"Your sister, I take it; there is the same straight line of eyebrow. No answer again? Well, we will pass it over for the nonce; you have still many things to learn, and, chiefly, to becomingly order body and soul in the presence of your lord. After all, it pleases me better to have the last word from the lady's own lips; she had been most discourteously treated, and I would fain be shriven. Until we meet again, then."