“Ha!” he exclaimed, snatching up the lamp and looking around, “where is the prisoner?”
“Gone,” replied Herne.
“What! has the fiend flown away with him?” cried the man, in mixed astonishment and alarm.
“He has been set free by Herne the Hunter!” cried the demon. “Tell all who question thee so, and relate what thou now seest.”
At the words a bright blue flame illumined the chamber, in the midst of which was seen the tall dark figure of Herne. His Franciscan's gown had dropped to his feet, and he appeared habited in his wild deer-skin garb. With a loud cry, the guard fell senseless on the ground.
A few minutes after this, as was subsequently ascertained, a tall Franciscan friar threaded the cloisters behind Saint George's Chapel, and giving the word to the sentinels, passed through the outer door communicating with the steep descent leading to the town.
X.
How Herne the Hunter was himself hunted.
On the guard's recovery, information of what had occurred was immediately conveyed to the king, who had not yet retired to rest, but was sitting in his private chamber with the Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk. The intelligence threw him into a great fury: he buffeted the guard, and ordered him to be locked up in the dungeon whence the prisoner had escaped; reprimanded the canon; directed the Duke of Suffolk, with a patrol, to make search in the neighbourhood of the castle for the fugitive and the friar; and bade the Duke of Norfolk get together a band of arquebusiers; and as soon as the latter were assembled, he put himself at their head and again rode into the forest.