"It was, master. The great thing, first of all, was to prevent discovery. Then I was confronted with a real difficulty--the task of finding you. I came at once to the city, and all through the weary days since then I have gone through and through the streets, not daring to ask for you, but hoping as well as praying that I might find you." "I saw you!" exclaimed Margaret. "You saw me?" the man retorted incredulously. "Yes. Do you remember the night when the rain poured down, and you sheltered in an archway? I came while you were standing there. Had I but known!" Margaret added earnestly. "Was it you?" asked Roye, in surprise. "Yes, and I was even then going to the house where Master Tyndale lodged." "If I had but known!" the man exclaimed, repeating Margaret's words. "Then, master, I had proved my loyalty to you and your great work, and my honest wish to serve you." Tyndale did not answer, for something came looming out of the darkness, when a heavy cloud had cast dark shadows on the river--the form of a slowly moving ship. She slid out into the moonlight, and as she took clear shape, Herman knew her by the peculiar figurehead at her bows. "'Tis the _Marburg_!" he exclaimed. Hurrying to the bank, and taking great risk while doing so, he sent a plaintive and monotonous owl note travelling through the air. He did it again and again until a man in the ship's bows held up his hand by way of answer to the call, and disappeared. Before long a boat came noiselessly, the oars being muffled, and presently she struck her nose against the bank. "Is Master Tyndale ready?" The question came cautiously from a man in the boat's stern. Happily the clouds had again gathered, and none, had any been watching, could have seen Tyndale step from among the bushes and make his way to the bank. "I am here. Are you not very late?" "A bit," was the sturdy, but whispered answer. "It couldn't be helped. That fellow, Cochlaeus, has been prowling about the harbour for the last three hours, and, not content with asking who was on board any of the ships that meant to leave to-night, he went aboard every one of them, and rummaged about in the cabins and down the holds, tapping everywhere where there was a possible place for a man to hide in. The _Marburg_ came in for special attention." Tyndale stood on the bank and listened, and the moonlight, playing on his face, revealed the intensity of his anxiety. "Did he find anything? Was he suspicious about those precious bundles?" he asked. "No, master; his whole aim was to lay those long lean fingers of his on flesh and blood. And something laughable happened, although some of us sweated with anxiety at first. Cochlaeus got down into the hold, where there were some casks, and these he tapped with his staff, as he tapped every mortal thing there was. Some of them sounded hollow, and he turned them over, but when he came to one and turned that on its side, a man sprawled out."