For a moment or two he was unable to move. Half-strangled and half-dazed by the dread attack and sudden fall, he was in so helpless a condition that he could not have lifted a hand to save his life. The noise of footsteps on the stone stairs leading to the cellar and the harsh grating of a key in the lock roused him a little, however, and he feebly extricated himself from the legs of the chair upon which he had fallen. Scarcely had he done so before two men, one of whom bore a torch, ran hurriedly in and rushed at him with knives upraised. The man bearing the light Edgar recognized as James Baulch.
Against their attack Edgar at first could defend himself but feebly. His hand still clutched the dagger with which he had severed the rope, but before he was in a condition to use it he had received several body thrusts that would have dispatched him outright had it not been for the shirt of steel mail he wore beneath his clothing.
Every moment, however, his strength came back, and, watching his chance, presently he parried a blow from Baulch's companion, and brought the hilt of his own dagger down upon the ruffian's head with all his strength. The man dropped prone in his tracks amid a yell of wrath from the men in the room above, who were eagerly peering down at the conflict from the opening in the floor.
Feeling that his chance had come, Edgar sprang fiercely upon Baulch and flung him to the floor, the torch spinning from his hand to the other end of the cellar. Kneeling upon the man's chest and placing his dagger at his throat, Edgar cried sternly:
"Tell me where is Sir John Chartris, or thou shall die."
The man gasped with amazement and fear, and cried hastily: "At Ruthènes."
"Where is this Ruthènes?" cried Edgar quickly.
But the man seemed already to have repented that he had told so much, and with an effort made shift to grasp the hand that held the threatening dagger. Doubtless he had seen the faces of his four friends above disappear from the trap, and had heard the scurry of their feet as they rushed across the room and made for the stairs. It could be but a matter of seconds before they were on the scene. Edgar, too, had heard the scurry of feet, and realized at once that he could get no more information before it would be too late. Wrenching himself free from Baulch's grasp and springing to his feet, he seized the chair and placed it upright beneath the trapdoor.
The instant he was free Baulch scrambled to his feet, and, emboldened by the approach of help--for the others' footsteps now sounded loudly upon the stairs--rushed at Edgar with a yell, and tried to prevent him mounting upon the chair.
"We will have thee yet, Edgar Wintour," he cried exultingly.