Once more the sentry made his rounds, and once more passed regardless of what was going forward six yards below him. Wilfrid appeared at the window, and, lowering himself hand over hand, came swiftly down the rope to the cliff below. There misfortune awaited us. As he dangled from the rope with his feet seeking a hold on the sloping cliff, he loosened a bit of rock, the size of a man’s head, that lay near the tower base; and this accursed stone slid and rolled noisily down the crag and struck the waters of the moat with a hideous splashing. At once the sentry, whose ears mayhap had been sharpened by the other noise for which he had found no reason, came running again to the tower. Peering into the darkness below, he spied the prisoner just as he leaped down the rock and plunged into the moat. The sentinel was a ready man and determined,—such an one as might well have served a better master. Setting up a lusty shout of alarm, he turned at once to a pile of the stones that were kept on the battlements for the repelling of besiegers, and began hurling these into the moat. The water’s surface was in shadow and we could not see the head of the swimmer, nor could we tell whether any of the soldier’s wild-flung missiles had found their mark. A minute passed wherein my blood seemed to freeze and my limbs to lock themselves fast like those of one who perishes from a mad dog’s bite. The stones still followed one another in vicious plunges into the black waters: and the soldier continued to halloo for the guardsmen at the gate to lower the bridge and search the farther bank. Then Cedric broke away from me and plunged into the moat. Forgetting all else, I followed him to the water’s edge, stood peering vainly into the blackness, and might have dived in also had he not speedily returned. He was swimming lustily with one hand, and with the other bearing up his comrade. I seized them both as they came within reach, and hauled them ashore. Cedric joined with me and we drew Wilfrid up the bank and half way to the group of saplings. There Cedric stopped with a groan of misery, and fell on his knees by the limp body of his friend. The wind had brushed the clouds from the sky; and by the starlight I saw that Wilfrid’s head had been crushed by one of the stones from the battlements. Cedric rose to his feet and shook his fist in frenzy toward the King’s stronghold. But already the bridge was down, and the guard was pouring across. I plucked my comrade by the sleeve. “Come Cedric, come! Our friend is past all help. Let us away ere they slay us also.” He turned to me with a face of deathly whiteness; and for a moment I thought he would refuse. But I seized his hand, and he let me hurry him to the shelter of the trees. Through these we quickly passed, and then raced down the dim-lit field to a hedgerow a furlong away. Running behind this, we soon distanced our pursuers.