Receiving no answer, the speaker, with an angry threat, plunged back into his room, and, plucking a torch from the wall, sprang out into the passage, sword in hand.
Edgar instantly attacked him. Aiming at the torch held on high, he severed it in twain at the first blow. The lighted end dropped down upon the black knight's chest, and from thence to the floor in front of him. Lunging forward to the attack once more, Edgar set his foot upon it and plunged the passage in total darkness, while his sword rattled vengefully against Sir Eustace's harness.
With a cry of impotent fury Sir Eustace sprang back into the room he had left. In the light of the falling torch he had recognized in his adversary the esquire whom he had imprisoned and for whom he was even at that moment impatiently waiting. He had come, indeed, but scarcely in the manner he had expected.
"Thou art mine still!" he shouted madly over his shoulder. "Dearly shalt thou pay for thine insolence!"
Freed for the moment, Edgar turned and sped down the passage as fast as the pitchy darkness would allow. But before he had caught up Peter the quick sharp clang of the alarm bell of the castle rang out with insistent clangour upon the stillness of the night. Instantly shouts and cries arose from all sides as the Ruthènes household and garrison sprang excitedly from their beds. Sir Eustace had lost no time in summoning the castle to arms, and to all appearances Edgar and his companions were caught in the iron jaws of a trap.
"We are lost, Master Edgar," cried Peter despairingly, as Edgar caught him up at the head of the winding staircase which, led downward to the dungeons they had left. "The alarm is sounded, and 'tis impossible that we can escape in face of the castle garrison."
"Courage, Peter!" cried Edgar. "Let me aid thee with Sir John. There is still a slender thread of hope left to us, and we must follow it."
"But why to our dungeons? Dost desire only to sell our lives as dearly as possible?"
"Nay, Peter. Dost not remember that just before we parted from the priest he spoke of a legend among his folk which told of the existence of an underground passage leading from out the castle? As we came from our dungeon a while since, didst not note the flight of stone steps that plunged yet deeper into the bowels of the earth? Our only chance is that the legend is true, and I feel a mighty hope that 'tis so. Onward, lad, onward!"
"But surely there will be gates to either end which we must pass?"