Still speaking no word the monarch rode to the great gate, crossed the bridge, and entered, and once within the outer bailey, looked about him. He rode into the inner bailey, and, dismounting, began a personal examination of the castle; and as he proceeded his frown grew blacker and blacker, for everywhere he saw evidences of premeditated and deliberate flight. The treasure chests were empty, and everything of value removed. At last he spoke. "What hath chanced here I know not," he said. "But this I know, these traitor walls shall stand no longer. Bid the artisans in to begin their destruction." Then turning to De Skirlaw he added: "Go thou to the moat and examine the armor. See, if thou canst, to what troop it belongeth." But before De Skirlaw could execute this commission there appeared upon the scene two men-at-arms from Hubert le Falconer, in search of certain of their companions, and they were at once brought before the king. To him they related how, for a certain sum, a certain knight in the service of the king had hired them to assist him in entering the castle, through the treachery of one Robert Sadler, and in carrying off the young lord, Josceline De Aldithely, to the direct custody of the king. "And this knight was--" interrupted John. "Sir Thomas De Lany," said the man-at-arms. "Came thy companions to the castle here?" demanded the king. "Yea, Your Majesty, some ten days now agone. My master having need of them hath sent us to call them to him again." "It is a call they will not answer," said John. "Nor will the brave knight, Sir Thomas De Lany, answer to my call. De Kirkham, take these men-at-arms to view the moat by the postern. Now know we who sleep there. Could we but know the whereabouts of the wife of this traitor, De Aldithely, and the whereabouts of his son, we were better satisfied. And now depart we from this place. Raze the walls. Let not one stone remain upon another. "And thou, De Skirlaw, and thou, De Kellaw, haste ye both to Newark and see if the rascal bailiff hath yet found the prisoner. He can speak if he will, and he must be found." With feigned zeal the two set out, but, once beyond the view of the king, their fiery pace lagged to a slow one as they rode toward Selby, where they were determined to halt for a night's rest. "I care not if the prisoner be not found," said De Kellaw. "I be tired of this tyranny; this imprisoning and slaying of children taken as hostages from their fathers; this razing of castles. John will not be king forever, and it behooveth us not to make ourselves odious to all men by helping him to his desires too much. I haste not on this enterprise, and so I tell thee." "Nor I neither," declared De Skirlaw. The king now set out on his return to Cawood, from whence, on the morrow, he would go on to Clipstone again.