What was there to fear? she asked; yet she knew it to be the dread of the intangible which was so overwhelming, following on the strain of so much anxiety when Cochlaeus was searching her father's house, and after that the further mental tension of watching for Tyndale's escape when he appeared to be hemmed in with danger. To her excited imagination, after such a day, the cavern was peopled with horrors. Her mind was under compulsion to think of the dead bodies close by her--to conjure up a story of unspeakable suffering, isolation, hunger, deadly fear, and the terror of the coming of the tormentors. She thought of this while standing in the open space, one hand holding the lantern high, the other on her bosom to still the wild beating of her heart. Then came the sound of voices, and a cry which was like a challenge, all coming as a jar to her being. She did not know the voices, for they sounded hollow and echoing in the ghostly place, having something of menace in them. The sounds came again. Once more she heard the challenge, and she could bear the strain no longer. The lantern fell from her hand and crashed on the cavern floor, where the candle spluttered and smoked the horny sides. Her brain reeled. In the diminished light she saw something moving, she knew not what. After that she fell beside the lantern, and lay as one that was dead. Who they were who came she did not know, nor who they were who, a few moments later, stood and gazed down at her, each one holding a lantern. CHAPTER XII THE NIGHT RIDE When Herman started on his errand his thoughts were divided. There was the wish that he had insisted on seeing Margaret safely through the cavern, if it had only been to give her over to his mother's care. He had accepted her ruling, for he realised the fatal consequences if that sinister creature of the Inquisition found Tyndale. He thought of the vessel going up the river, past the castles of robber lords, and freighted with merchandise such as had never gone up the stream before, since the bundles of quarto sheets of the New Testament which Tyndale was so laboriously translating into simple English were in the hold. Two things were fixed deeply in Herman's mind: one that, come what would, Cochlaeus must not come into touch with Tyndale; the other that his late guest, now so honoured and so loved for his gentle ways and godly life, must arrive in Worms, where he would be comparatively safe, since that city was in what Cochlaeus called "the full rage of Lutheranism." And Luther, too, was there. The purpose was a spur to him, although with the endurance of an athlete he went on and on. He was in feverish anxiety to go yet faster, and give warning to the fugitive of the men who were after him. One thing he could not understand--that, fleet of foot though he was, he went so far without overtaking Cochlaeus and his companions. Nor as he went did he come across any sign of the _Marburg_.