Morten crept towards the neighbouring stable. He went across a dunghill to the stable door, upon which a large cross was marked in chalk by way of safeguard. The usually watchful mastiffs did not bark. It seemed to Morten as if the cross on the stable door gleamed in the moonlight. The door of the groom's chamber he had to pass stood ajar. He peeped in, and saw three men in a deep sleep. In the stalls close by stood two small horses. He untied their halters, and led them out. The stone pavement of the stable and without the back door was covered with horse-litter, and he succeeded in leading the horses out without the slightest noise. He led them slowly towards the sea shore, and often looked behind him, but no one pursued--no dog barked, and the whole seemed to him to be almost miraculous. He found the archbishop where he had left him, in an attitude of prayer. With unwonted solemnity, and with a respect which, however, seemed mingled with a kind of dread, Morten, without saying a word, assisted the prelate to mount one of the horses; he himself vaulted upon the other, and they rode in silence at a rapid trot down to the shore. There a tall grave knight and the two Lolland deserters awaited them with a boat which they had stolen from the fishing village. The knight and both the wild Lollanders bent the knee reverently before the archbishop as he extended his fingers to give them his blessing. With Morten's aid he dismounted, and stepped into the boat. Morten turned the strange horses loose, and seated himself on a rowing bench. With a few powerful strokes of the oar they reached a vessel with a black flag and pennant, which was waiting for them at some distance from the shore. They entered the ship, and let the boat float away. The day had not dawned when the vessel with the black flag sailed with a fair breeze through the Sound, bearing off without impediment the dangerous man, who, even in his chains, had dared to excommunicate Denmark's sovereign. CHAP. VIII. Sjoeborg castle, which in the latter months of the year 1295 was honoured by the presence of royalty, and had been the theatre of such important events, stood desolate and deserted on the morning of the following new year. The gate was shut, and the floating bridge removed. The sentinel was no longer on guard on the battlement over the gate; within, no sounds of gaiety and occupancy were heard; without the southern rampart and the narrowest part of the lake which insulated the site of the castle stood a gallows, at the end of what was called the king's garden, where the roads met from Esrom and Gilleleie. On the gallows hung a lifeless corpse in a short sheep-skin coat, and with a pair of shaggy boots on the legs. A pair of ravens flapped their wings over the sinner's head, and around the stiff frozen body fluttered a flock of screaming crows.