"What can you do?" one asked, who had gone closer to the bank, as if to gaze up the broad stream. "I mean to overtake the _Marburg_, go on board, and search afresh for Tyndale," said Cochlaeus, almost viciously. "And if you find him?" asked the other, speaking back over his shoulder, but not moving from the bank. "Make an end both of him and his accursed practices," came the hot answer. "Canst see the ship?" "No." Margaret thought she knew the voice of the man on the look out, and presently her suspicion became a certainty. The man who spoke to Cochlaeus on equal terms was the Dean, who had accompanied the search-party in her father's shop. "Let us start, and we may overtake her!" cried the Deacon. "None will see us walking on the bank, so that for once the darkness is a blessing in disguise." "And what then?" the Dean asked impatiently. "What then?" The response betrayed astonishment at such simplicity. "What then? I will board her, of course, and search again. What else should I do? What less could I? That fellow on the wharf said that he saw one go on board who answered to Tyndale in every point, and I would give half of all I have to lay hands on him." The Dean spoke curtly. "Let us go if we must, since you seem so set on it. But I warn you that it will be a fool's errand." Cochlaeus was on the move at once, and it seemed to those who were hiding in the bush that the company went forward in a straggling line, not one among them willingly, save the man who led. It was alarming to Margaret and Herman to find that after all that had been done, when things appeared to be going so well, and when in fancy they saw Tyndale sitting in a quiet room somewhere in the city where Martin Luther lived, absorbed in his holy task, this persistent sleuth-hound was on his track, and shortly, whereas he was imagining himself safe, he might be in the hands of his tormentors, and his dream of a great task completed broken in upon. "Herman," Margaret whispered, afraid to move lest she might betray her presence, although the sound of the men's footsteps had grown indistinct as they fell on the meadow grass. "Yes, little one?" "They will find him, and they will kill him!" she exclaimed, her voice breaking. Herman was holding her hand, and it felt damp with her sudden fear. "I will take you home, my dear, and then go after them. I shall do my best to pass them, for I shall go fleetly, and give warning to those on board the _Marburg_." "You will be too late!" Margaret protested. "It will take you an hour or more to go back with me, and then those men will have gone so far that you will not overtake them, much less pass them."