Peter stared at his young master wide-eyed. Stout-hearted and faithful though he was, even he seemed to have been struck with fear at last.
"They are----" he began.
"Hush!" whispered Edgar warningly, turning away and again leaning head and arms on the haft of his great axe.
"What is it, Edgar?" asked Beatrice softly, placing her hand gently on the young man's shoulder. "Hide it not from me. Thou wilt, I hope, find that I can show fortitude when need be."
"I doubt it not," replied Edgar in a breaking voice. "But can I bring thee to such a pass and see thee perish unmoved?"
"But what is it?" reiterated Beatrice appealingly. "What meaneth this knocking which grows louder every moment? Look! The very wall seems to shake beneath these mysterious blows."
"Aye. It meaneth, Beatrice, that Black Eustace or blacker De Maupas is driving in the tunnel where it passes beneath the moat. Doubtless they are using an iron bar or a baulk of wood. Their unknightly and shameful plot is to drown us like rats, or to compel us to run the gauntlet of their fires. A few minutes and one or other fate is ours."
Horror-struck, Beatrice gazed at the roof of the passage, now perceptibly quivering beneath the blows from above. Already the water was trickling in between the widening cracks of the masonry and running in tiny streams down the wall to their feet. Once a block of stone had been driven in, an onrush of water must ensue that would quickly fill the tunnel. Though the dam that had held up the waters of the moat had been broken down, the stream water still flowed in volume sufficient to fill the tunnel a hundred times over.
"I must return to the mouth of the tunnel and seek speech with De Brin," cried Edgar, suddenly starting to his feet after contemplating the widening cracks in gloomy silence. "Better that thou shouldst wed De Maupas, evil fate though it be, than that thou shouldst perish thus miserably here."
"Nay, Edgar," replied Beatrice firmly. "Thou shalt do no such thing. 'Tis for me to say which fate is the better, and I elect to perish here among friends rather than to live elsewhere among enemies. Calm thyself and fret not at this mischance. I reproach thee not."