“What hast thou to revenge?”

“Didst thou not plot to oust me of mine inheritance, the night before the doting old woman died up above?  It cost her her life.”

“For which thou must answer to God.”

“Nay, thine hand, not mine, administered it.  Ha! ha! ha!”

“And what dost thou seek of me now?”

“Nothing, save the joy of removing an enemy out of my path.”

“I am no man’s enemy.”

“Yes, thou art mine, and always hast been.  Didst thou not plot against me with that old hag, Mother Madge, whom I have sent to her master in a chariot of fire?”

“I heard her confession of that particular crime.”

“So did I, through eavesdroppers.  Well, thou knowest too much; and shalt never see the sun again.  It is pleasant is it not—­the fresh air of the green woods, the sheen of the sun, the songs of the birds, the murmur of the streams, the scent of the flowers.

“Ah, ah!—­thou feelest it—­well, it shall never again fall to thy lot to see, hear, and smell all these.  Here shalt thou linger out thy remaining days; thy companions the toad, the eft, the spider, the beetle; and when thou diest of hunger and thirst, which will eventually be thy lot, this cell shall be thy coffin.  Here shalt thou rot.”

“And hence shall I rise, in that case, at the day of resurrection.  Nay, Drogo, thou canst not frighten me.  I am not in thy power.  Thou canst not tame the spirit.  Do thy worst, I wait God’s hour.”

Drogo was beside himself by rage at this language on the part of a captive, and he would have struck him down on the spot but for something in Martin that awed him, even as the keeper, who calls himself the lion king, tames the lion.

“We shall see,” he said, and left the cell.

“My lord, do not harm him,” said the man.  “If a hand be laid upon him the men-at-arms will rebel.  They fear that it will bring a curse upon them.”

“The fools, what is a friar but flesh and blood like others?”

“I would sooner hang or fry a hundred wretched burghers, or behead a score of knights, than touch this friar.”

“I see how it is.  I must contrive to starve or poison him,” thought the base lord of the castle.

As he ascended the stairs he heard the sound of a trumpet, or rather a horn.  Loud cries of surprise and alarm greeted his ears.

He went out on the watch tower.  The woods were alive with men:  they issued out on all sides—­the “merrie men” of the woods.

Drogo saw at once that they had come to seek Martin.  He took hold of a white flag, and advanced to the tower above the central gateway—­to parley—­for he feared the arrows of the marksmen of the woods.

“Whom seek ye?”

“One whom thou hast wrongfully imprisoned.  The friar Martin.”

“I have not got him here.”

“But thou hast, and we have come to claim him.”

“Choose three of your number.  They may come and confer with me in the castle upon his disappearance.  God forbid that I should lay hands on His ministers.”