"How can I express my gratitude to you, gentle lady, for adventuring so much in order that you might give me my life! But I would that the curse of Heaven may be upon me as an ingrate, if I forget, even for an hour, the debt I owe to you, and, if opportunity serve, I return not with interest to thee and thine this act of mercy done to me in my extremity. But the time is urgent, as you say. So adieu, lady." "Stay, sir knight; there is one other point--how will you make good your escape? Had you not better go with us to our women's quarters? Then we may devise with greater leisure some further means to ensure your escape." "If you will but lend me your cloak, lady, to disguise my form, I know this castle's resources, and I shall not fail to make my escape. As a token of this, I will leave the cloak at the foot of the stair leading to the tower. Adieu, lady! We shall meet again under happier auspices." So saying, he bounded from the dungeon and disappeared in the darkness. CHAPTER XIII. BARON VIGNEAU BAULKED OF HIS REVENGE. "Midnight brought on the dusky hour, Friendliest to sleep and silence." Milton. The pall of darkness is spread over the face of Nature, and the bold outlines of the mountains are shrouded in its embrace. Under cover of the darkness, a cordon of vigilant and daring sentinels are closing in upon the castle and its carousing inmates. One stealthy figure glides peeringly from tree to tree amongst the clump of towering chestnuts, until he reaches one near the wall, when, throwing his legs around it, and catching hold of the tough and sinewy shoots in the bole, he mounts aloft, and perches daringly amid the branches of the tree, watching the remnant of the Normans who still are able to keep up the orgie. But most of them are now fast in the arms of a sodden sleep. Another figure, on hands and knees, with snake-like motion has left the thicket of laurel, hazels, and flowering currants at the foot of the slope in front, and wriggles his way up the rising ground on which the castle is built, until he comes daringly close to the wall; whilst the short, sharp scream of the night-owl, issuing from first one point and then another, tells that concerted action is afoot. The secret of it is, that Wulfhere has rallied a band of the hardiest Saxons, if needs be, to dare a desperate deed of rescue on behalf of their captive chieftain. Many a fierce Saxon, with naked sword and eagerly listening ear, is lurking around, ready for any deed that may be required of him.