“Wait here for a few minutes,” he said to the overseer. “The bailiff will himself question the slave as to his accomplishments; but I fancy he will not be considered of sufficient age for the post that is vacant. However, if this should not be so, I shall no doubt find a post to fit him ere long, for he seems a smart young fellow, and, what is better, a willing one, and bears himself well under his misfortunes.” Then he motioned to Gervaise to follow him to the bailiff's apartments. “Well, Sir Gervaise,” Sir John Kendall exclaimed, as the door closed behind him, “have you found aught to justify this cruel penance you have undertaken?” “As to the penance, Sir John, it has been nothing unsupportable. The exercise is hard enough, but none too hard for one in good health and strength, and, save for the filth of the chamber in which we are shut up at night, and the foul state of the rushes on which we lie, I should have naught to complain of. No, I have as yet heard nothing of a surety--and yet enough to show me that my suspicions were justified, and that there is a plot of some sort on foot,” and he related to the two knights the conversation he had had with the galley slave. “By St. George!” the bailiff said, “you have indeed been justified in your surmises, and I am glad that I attached sufficient importance to your suspicions to let you undertake this strange enterprise. What think you, Sir John Boswell?” “I think with you, that Sir Gervaise has fully justified his insistence in this matter, which I own I considered to be hare brained folly. What is to be done next, Sir Gervaise?” “That is what I have been turning over in my mind. You see, I may have little warning of what is going to take place. I may not hear of it until we are locked up for the night and the affair is on the point of taking place, and it will, of course, be most needful that I shall be able to communicate with you speedily.” “That, of course, is of vital importance,” the bailiff said. “But how is it to be managed?” “That is what I cannot exactly see, Sir John. An armed guard remains in our room all night. But, in the first place, he might be himself in the plot, and if not, the slaves would almost certainly overpower him and kill him, as a preliminary to the work of knocking off their chains.” “Is there a window to the room? At least, of course there is a window, but is it within your reach?” “There are six small loopholes--one on each side of the door, and two in each of the side walls; they are but four inches across and three feet in length, and there are two crossbars to each; they are four feet from the floor.” “At any rate, they are large enough for your arm to pass through, Sir Gervaise, and you might drop a strip of cloth out.” “Certainly I could, Sir John. I could easily hide a piece of white cotton a yard or so long in my clothes, scanty as these are, and could certainly manage, unobserved, to drop it outside the window.”