“Let us follow the back track,” De Lacy exclaimed.

For a score of paces it led them, slowly and laboriously, into the dark forest, and then vanished, and though they searched in all directions, no further trace was found.  It was a fruitless quest; and at length the squire persuaded his master to abandon it and await the coming of the dawn.

Reluctantly De Lacy remounted and they rode slowly back to Pontefract.  The soldiers bearing Sir John de Bury had reached there some time before, and he lay on the couch in his own room.  There was no material change in his condition, though under the candle-light there was less of the ghastly pallor of death in the face; and about the ears were evidences that the blood was beginning to circulate more strongly.  The King’s own physician, Antonio Carcea—­an Italian—­sat beside him with his hand on the pulse and, ever and anon, bent to listen to the respiration.

At Be Lacy’s entrance he glanced up with a frown which faded when he saw who it was.

“He will live, Signor,” he said in Italian.  “He has not yet come to consciousness, but it is only a matter of a little while.”

“Will he speak by daybreak?” De Lacy asked.

“Most likely, Signor.”

“Summon me on the instant, and may the Good God aid you.”

Going to his quarters and waving Dauvrey aside when he would have relieved him of his doublet, Aymer threw himself upon the bed.  He had ridden far that day, and with the coming of the sun would begin what promised to be a labor long and arduous.  He could not sleep—­and his closed eyes but made the fancies of his brain more active and the visions of his love, abducted and in hideous peril, more real and agonizing.  Yet to serve her he must needs be strong and so he tried to compose himself and rest his body.  There was scanty time until morning; but an hour of quiet now might breed a day of vigor in the future.

Presently there came a sharp knock and Ratcliffe entered.

“Lie still,” he said, as De Lacy would have risen.  “I know you found no trace of the Countess else you would not be here.  Yet, perchance, Sir John may speak or some of the scouts return with a clue.  If not, the sunlight, doubtless, will reveal what the night has hidden.  The King has retired, but he bade me say to you not to depart without word with him.  Meanwhile if any of the scouts come in they are to report to you.”

Slowly the minutes dragged themselves out.  The shadows lengthened more and more as the moon went to its rest behind the distant Craven hills.  Then of a sudden, light and shadow mingled and all was dark.  Presently a cock crowed; and the sound seemed loud as a roar of a bombard.  Again the cock crowed, and from the retainers’ houses another and another answered, until the shrill cry ran along the outer bailey and across the wall and on down the hill to the village, growing fainter and fainter until, at the last, it was like a far distant echo, more memory than reality.