“’Is it wise to free this Stokes?  You forget, my Lord Abbot, that he is alleged to have witnessed a certain slaying yonder in the forest and will bear evidence.’  ‘Aye,’ answered Maldon, ’I had forgotten who in this press remembered only that no other man would be believed.  Still, perhaps it would be best to choose a different messenger and to silence this fellow at once.  Write down that Jeffrey Stokes, a prisoner, strove to escape and was killed by the guards in self-defence.  Take him hence and let me hear no more.’

“Now my blood went cold, although I strove to look as careless as a man may on an empty stomach after three days in the dark, and cursed him prettily in Spanish to his face.  Then, as they were haling me off, Brother Martin—­do you remember him? he was our companion in some troubles over-seas—­stepped forward out of the shadow and said, ’Of what use is it, Abbot, to stain your soul with so foul a murder?  Since John Foterell died the King has many things to lay to your account, and any one of them will hang you.  Should you fall into his hands, he’ll not hark back to Foterell’s death, if, indeed, you were to blame in that matter.’

“‘You speak roughly, Brother,’ answered the Abbot; ’and acts of war are not murder, though perchance afterwards you might say they were, to save your own skin, or others might.  Well, if so, there’s wisdom in your words.  Touch not the man.  Give him the letter and thrust him into the moat to swim it.  His lies can make no odds in the count against us.’

“Well, they did so, and I came here, as you saw, to find you living, and now I understand why Maldon thought that Harflete’s life is worth so much,” and, having done his tale, once more Jeffrey began to eat.

Cicely looked at him, they all looked at him—­this gaunt, fierce man who, after many other sorrows and strivings, had spent three days in a black dungeon with the rats, fed upon water and a few fingers of black bread.  Yes; with the crawling rats and another man so dear to one of them, who still sat in that horrid hole, waiting to be hung like a felon at the dawn.  The silence, with only Jeffrey’s munching to break it, grew painful, so that all were glad when the door opened and the messenger whom they had sent to the Abbey appeared.  He was breathless, having run fast, and somewhat disturbed, perhaps because two arrows were sticking in his back, or rather in his jerkin, for the mail beneath had stopped them.

“Speak,” said old Jacob Smith; “what is your answer?”

“Look behind me, master, and you will find it,” replied the man.  “They set a ladder across the moat and a board on that, over which a priest tripped to take my writing.  I waited a while, till presently I heard a voice hail me from the gateway tower, and, looking up, saw Abbot Maldon standing there, with a face like that of a black devil.

“‘Hark you, knave,’ he said to me, ’get you gone to the witch, Cicely Foterell, and to the recreant monk, Bolle, whom I curse and excommunicate from the fellowship of Holy Church, and tell them to watch for the first light of dawn, for by it, somewhat high up, they’ll see Christopher Harflete hanging black against the morning sky!’