’I had no sooner locked the tower-door behind us than over goes Sebastian full length in the dark.

’"Pest!” he says.  “Step high and feel low, Hal.  I’ve stumbled over guns before.”

’I groped, and one by one—­the tower was pitchy dark—­I counted the lither barrels of twenty serpentines laid out on pease straw.  No conceal at all!

’"There’s two demi-cannon my end,” says Sebastian, slapping metal.  “They’ll be for Andrew Barton’s lower deck.  Honest—­honest John Collins!  So this is his warehouse, his arsenal, his armoury!  Now see you why your pokings and pryings have raised the Devil in Sussex?  You’ve hindered John’s lawful trade for months,” and he laughed where he lay.

’A clay-cold tower is no fireside at midnight, so we climbed the belfry stairs, and there Sebastian trips over a cow-hide with its horns and tail.

’"Aha!  Your Devil has left his doublet!  Does it become me, Hal?” He draws it on and capers in the shafts of window-moonlight—­won’erful devilish-like.  Then he sits on the stairs, rapping with his tail on a board, and his back-aspect was dreader than his front, and a howlet lit in, and screeched at the horns of him.

’"If you’d keep out the Devil, shut the door,” he whispered.  “And that’s another false proverb, Hal, for I can hear your tower-door opening.”

’"I locked it.  Who a-plague has another key, then?” I said.

’"All the congregation, to judge by their feet,” he says, and peers into the blackness.  “Still!  Still, Hal!  Hear ’em grunt!  That’s more o’ my serpentines, I’ll be bound.  One—­two—­three—­four they bear in!  Faith, Andrew equips himself like an Admiral!  Twenty-four serpentines in all!”

’As if it had been an echo, we heard John Collins’s voice come up all hollow:  “Twenty-four serpentines and two demi-cannon.  That’s the full tally for Sir Andrew Barton.”

’"Courtesy costs naught,” whispers Sebastian.  “Shall I drop my dagger on his head?”

‘"They go over to Rye o’ Thursday in the wool-wains, hid under the wool-packs.  Dirk Brenzett meets them at Udimore, as before,” says John.

’"Lord!  What a worn, handsmooth trade it is!” says Sebastian.  “I lay we are the sole two babes in the village that have not our lawful share in the venture.”

’There was a full score folk below, talking like all Robertsbridge Market.  We counted them by voice.

’Master John Collins pipes:  “The guns for the French carrack must lie here next month.  Will, when does your young fool” (me, so please you!) “come back from Lunnon?”

’"No odds,” I heard Ticehurst Will answer.  “Lay ’em just where you’ve a mind, Mus’ Collins.  We’re all too afraid o’ the Devil to mell with the tower now.”  And the long knave laughed.

’"Ah! ’tis easy enow for you to raise the Devil, Will,” says another—­Ralph Hobden of the Forge.

’"Aaa-men!” roars Sebastian, and ere I could hold him, he leaps down the stairs—­won’erful devilish-like howling no bounds.  He had scarce time to lay out for the nearest than they ran.  Saints, how they ran!  We heard them pound on the door of the Bell Tavern, and then we ran too.