"Whither leads this room?" asked Sir Hereward, opening the middle door, and looking in upon Peter's array of candles, banners, wreaths, and palls. "Here, under these, I can make myself secret till the search be done!" Without further words, he lifted from the darkest corner a pile of disordered linen stuffs, loose shrouds, and grave-cloths, and coverings for coffins. The Sacristan, as he looked from the doorway, noted with shrewd swiftness the gay colors of the morris-dresses underneath, and, stepping forward, laid his hand upon them. Then Hugh, hurriedly, and with faltering lips, told Peter what they were, and the story of their guilty presence--and lo! the old monk laughed aloud. Then suddenly--as the clamor of the chase deepened outside--Peter hissed commands into Sir Hereward's ear. "Get you into this motley in all haste! Lose no moment! Thus only can you win outside and pass the gates, and go unquestioned through the town!" CHAPTER III. HOW HUGH MET THE PRINCE. Only a brief space later, Hugh and this new companion in painted fool's clothes and with raddled cheeks made their way forth from the great west gate to the green. No formless loitering of idle men-at-arms now met their gaze. Straight lines of pikemen had been posted before each entrance to church or monastery, and in the open space beyond stood long regular ranks of other soldiers, with fluttering standards and a forest of tall weapons--all newly burnished--ashine in the morning sun. The twain, with as bold a front as might be, walked down this passage of pikes until the captain of the watch, a burly, bearded man in Flemish armor, stopped them with uplifted hand; and two dozen pike-heads clashed down as by a single touch, to bar alike progress and retreat. [Illustration: "TWO DOZEN PIKE-HEADS CLASHED DOWN AS BY A SINGLE TOUCH."] "I am the scrivener of the Abbey," Hugh called out from within this steel girdle, "and go forth to the Tolzey at behest of your master and mine--the Lord Duke of Gloster." "And this merry fellow; hath the Duke need for him likewise?" the captain asked, with sharp glances. "I'm sworn his Grace looks more for headsmen than for morris-dancers, as to-day's wind blows." "Put thy queries to the Duke himself," said Hugh; "and hold us no longer waiting here, as he waits at the Tolzey." Grumbling in his beard, the captain dropped his hand, and the pikes flashed upward. Hugh and the mock fool passed forth, and turned their feet townwards across the trampled sward. At the church gate to their right hand, a greater body of armed men stood, and beyond these, within the churchyard, high plumes on knightly helmets nodded in the morning breeze. Of what was going forward there the two saw nothing, but hurried on, glad to pass unquestioned.