Now the bell stopped and the Danes howled the louder.  A torch flew over the wall and fell at my feet blazing, and I hurled it back, and the Danes laughed at one whom it struck.  Then came the two monks from the tower and ran into the church, while I watched the trembling of the sorely-tried gate, and had it fallen I should surely have smitten the first Dane who entered, even had Halfden himself been foremost, for in the four walls of that holy place I was trapped, and knew that I must fight at last.  And now it seemed to me that I was to fight for our faith and our land; and for those sacred things, if I might do naught in dying, I would give my life gladly.

“Come,” said the prior’s voice, and he was smiling though his face was pale, while behind him the sacristan bore an oaken chest, iron bound, on his shoulders.

He drew me across the courtyard, but I ever looked back at the gate, thinking it would fall; and now they were at the other gate, and blows rained on it.  Yet the monk smiled again and went on without faltering, though our way was towards it.

Then we turned under an arch into a second court, and the din was less plain as we did so.  There was the well of the monastery, and without a word the sacristan hove the heavy chest from his shoulders into its black depths, and the splash and bubble of its falling came up to us.

“That is safe,” said the prior; “now for ourselves.”

He hooked the oaken bucket to its rope and let it down to its full length in the well, and at once the sacristan swung himself on it, slid down, and was gone.  Then the rope swayed to one side, and stayed there, shaking gently in a minute or so.

The prior drew it up, and maybe fifteen feet from the top, there was a bundle tied—­a rope ladder on which were iron hooks.  These he fastened to the edge of the oaken platform that covered the well mouth, and let the other end fall down the well.  Then he bade me go down to the sacristan.

That was easy to me, and I went, yet I feared for him who stood listening to the splintering of the nearer gate, for it would soon fall surely.  I saw the sacristan’s face glimmer white before me from a hollow in the well shaft, as I set my foot on the last rung of the ladder, and I held out my hand to him.  Then in a moment I was beside him in a little chamber built in the walling of the well; and after me came the prior.

He jerked the ladder from side to side till the hooks above lost their hold and it fell, so that he drew it in.  We were but a few feet above the water, and the well rope hung down into the blackness before us, but I was sure that no man could see the little doorway of the chamber from above, for the trapdoor in the well cover was small, and light there was hardly any.

“Now all is safe,” said the prior; “and we may be careless again.”

“They will burn the monastery,” I said.  “One torch has been thrown already.”