The taller of the two had lost an eye, and the other had a huge scar between his nose and mouth, which looked like a hare lip, and his sharp projecting teeth gave him a ferocious appearance, resembling that of a wild boar. The three wanderers occasionally looked behind them, as if they apprehended a pursuit; but they only beheld the white gable ends of Esrom monastery, which they had passed a short time before. "Now, thanks for good companionship," said Morten, as he halted at a cross road in the forest. "It were best we part company for the present; ye understand what I said to you--ye are to hide yourselves at Gilleleie, and watch every night, until ye see the skiff with the black pennant, then push off with Jeppe's boat, and set me on shore: meanwhile watch narrowly all that goes on here, and who goes in and out of the castle. What Niels Brock and the archbishop have promised, you may make sure of. But then ye must not be self-willed; ye will never be able to get him out by force, and if the king and Marsk Oluffsen come hither to-day or to-morrow, ye might lightly get hanged and ruin every thing." "Leave that to us, sly Morten," said the man with the one eye. "Johan Kyste well knows what he is about. I committed but one folly in my life; 'twas on that Easter eve I deserted from the Marsk, and took the palfrey from the pious clerk; I did but knock a little hole in his skull, but it was large enough for his bit of a soul to slink out of: one should let holy men go their way in peace; for this, I am now forced to put up with one eye. I vowed, therefore, to our Lady and St. Joseph, to become pious and God-fearing from that very hour, and never more to lay my hand on other than laymen." "A pious resolve," said Morten: "wert thou not such a bloodhound and cut-throat, I could almost believe thy soul might be saved as yet, even shouldst thou steal and rob in a small way at times." "It bids fair to be so," answered the one-eyed. "I have a letter of absolution from the archbishop, within my woollen jerkin, that will stand me in good stead when all the world besides marches to hell. Truly I served the learned Master Grand faithfully by night and day these many years, therefore hath the pious archbishop given me freedom from fasting, and absolution for sins for ten whole years: he hath not spared his silver pieces either; and shall I now suffer them to shut up such a man, and thereby rob so many honest fellows of a living? What sayest thou, Ole Ark? Shall we suffer it any longer? hath Master Grand deserved it of us?" "Pshaw! Kyste; who says thou art to suffer it, and leave him in the lurch?" interrupted Morten. "We all want to have him out; but we would not be as fools, trying to burst open the doors with their own thick skulls. Force will not help us here--do but as I bid thee, and keep thy courage until we want it."