As you are my knight, keep this tryst. In
distress and peril. . . .Come what might, there was a risk I could
not run.
I had no weapons to assume, no preparations to make. Gathering
up the gaoler's gold I started toward the door, opened it, and going
out would have closed it softly behind me but that a booted leg
thrust across the jamb prevented me. "I am going with you," said
Diccon in a guarded voice. "If you try to prevent me, I will rouse
the house." His head was thrown back in the old way; the old
daredevil look was upon his face. "I don't know why you are
going," he declared, "but there'll be danger, anyhow."
"To the best of my belief I am walking into a trap," I said.
"Then it will shut on two instead of one," he answered doggedly.
By this he was through the door, and there was no shadow of
turning on his dark, determined face. I knew my man, and wasted
no more words. Long ago it had grown to seem the thing most in
nature that the hour of danger should find us side by side.
When the door of the firelit room was shut, the gaol was in
darkness that might be felt. It was very still: the few other inmates
were fast asleep; the gaoler was somewhere out of sight, dreaming
with open eyes. We groped our way through the passage to the
stairs, noiselessly descended them, and found the outer door
unchained, unbarred, and slightly ajar.
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