It grew darker. Now the last light shimmered between the leaf-laden branches; a murky haze overspread tree and shrub and moss-covered ground until all objects were lost in the black night. The castle was a good three hundred paces away, but it was so still that they heard the rattle of the porter's keys when he made fast the great outer gate. The chains of the drawbridge rattled; they could see a lantern flash on a steel cap as its owner made the parapet rounds; a few glints of light from the narrow windows in the keep faded one by one; then—silence.
Richard felt for his sheath and loosened Trenchefer; then whispered to a shock-pated "villain," whose wrists were bound, and the cord in Herbert's keeping:—
"Now, Giles of the Mill, serve us true in this; for as I hope in heaven, your hands shall be stricken off, and the stumps plunged in hot sulphur, if you play false!"
"Never fear, lord," answered the fellow. "Raoul hung my eldest son for fishing in his stream after mid-Lent; never fear his brother will fail to let down the ladder."
Richard rose to his feet very slowly. It was so dark under the trees that the keenest eye saw only blackness. On the western hill-crest, where the clouds gave way, the last bars of pale light still hung, but dimming each moment.
"Nox ruit interea, et montes umbrantur," repeated Sebastian, softly, at Longsword's elbow.
"Ai, father," muttered the Norman, turning, "why did you not remain in the glen by the horses? We will call you, if any need shriving."
"And shall not the shepherd go with the sheep?" said Sebastian, solemnly. "Ah! dear son, if God bless you this night, slay the guilty, but spare the innocent!"
"Time enough," protested Richard, "to consider, when we see the inside of that keep. By St. Michael, it will be no jaunty hawking!"
Sebastian laid his great, iron-capped mace upon his shoulder. "This weapon I bear," said he, "that I may not live by the sword, and so by the sword perish."