Passing along for some distance they came to another strong oaken door.  This, like the last, yielded to the efforts of the crowbars of the foresters, and they again advanced.  Presently they came to a flight of steps.

“We must now be near the castle,” Cnut said.  “In fact, methinks I can hear confused noises ahead.”

Mounting the steps, they came to a third door; this was thickly studded with iron, and appeared of very great strength.  Fortunately the lock was upon their side, and they were enabled to shoot the bolt; but upon the other side the door was firmly secured by large bolts, and it was fully five minutes before the foresters could succeed in opening it.  It was not without a good deal of noise that they at last did so; and several times they paused, fearing that the alarm must have been given in the castle.  As, however, the door remained closed, they supposed that the occupants were fully engaged in defending themselves from the attacks of the earl’s party.

When the door gave way they found hanging across in front of them a very thick arras, and pressing this aside they entered a small room in the thickness of the wall of the keep.  It contained the merest slit for light, and was clearly unused.  Another door, this time unfastened, led into a larger apartment, which was also at present unoccupied.  They could hear now the shouts of the combatants without, the loud orders given by the leaders on the walls, the crack, as the stones hurled by the mangonels struck the walls, and the ring of steel as the arrows struck against steel cap and cuirass.

“It is fortunate that all were so well engaged, or they would certainly have heard the noise of our forcing the door, which would have brought all of them upon us.  As it is, we are in the heart of the keep.  We have now but to make a rush up these winding steps, and methinks we shall find ourselves on the battlements.  They will be so surprised that no real resistance can be offered to us.  Now let us advance.”

So saying Cnut led the way upstairs, followed by the foresters, Cuthbert, as before, allowing five or six of them to intervene between him and the leader.  He carried his short sword and a quarterstaff, a weapon by no means to be despised in the hands of an active and experienced player.

Presently, after mounting some fifty or sixty steps, they issued on the platform of the keep.  Here were gathered some thirty or forty men, who were so busied in shooting with crossbows, and in working machines casting javelins, stones, and other missiles upon the besiegers, that they were unaware of the addition to their numbers until the whole of the foresters had gathered on the summit, and at the order of Cnut suddenly fell upon them with a loud shout.

Taken wholly by surprise by the foe, who seemed to have risen from the bowels of the earth by magic, the soldiers of the Baron of Wortham offered but a feeble resistance.  Some were cast over the battlement of the keep, some driven down staircases, others cut down, and then, Cuthbert fastening a small white flag he had prepared to his quarterstaff, waved it above the battlements.