"It is thou!" he cried. "I had not thought to see thee again," and he almost embraced me in his joy.
I put forward my rough hand and stroked his yellow curls, as though he were a babe and I his mother.
"Ah, lad, we are still prisoners," I said mournfully.
"Yes," he replied, "but we are both alive, and that is more than I had hoped for at one time. When the priest felled thee with the cup, I whipped out my sword and ran at him. He turned and fled out of the door with me at his heels; catching his foot on a stone, he tripped and fell. I was upon him before he could arise. Another moment—and it would all have been over. When lo! these men arose from the ground around us, where they had been lying, and overpowered me. Tying my hands, they took my sword away, and bringing me up to this room, guided by the priest, they unbound and left me. I did not know what had become of thee, and was almost mad with anxiety when thou, too, wert brought in."
"What of DeNortier?" I asked. "He was not below when Drake took the hall."
The lad grinned at me.
"I left him on the floor, where thy buffet had sprawled him, for he was as though dead when I ran after the priest."
"He must have recovered himself and escaped," I said. "He is as slippery and cunning as a fox, and doubtless he lies hidden in some of his secret caves about here."
"What was the volley that I heard but a minute ago?" he asked.