The night seemed dark and silent without, the woodlands asleep, the night empty of all unrest. Yet there had come to Grimbald a sense of something moving in the darkness. And as they listened there was a faint splash from the moat, and a sound like the creaking of wet leather. Grimbald’s eyes were fixed on Aymery’s face. “Listen!” “A rat in the moat?” Grimbald put his horn down on the table, rose up swiftly and silently, and taking his axe, went out into the courtyard. Aymery’s sword and shield hung from a peg in the wall. He took them down, and had gained the door of the hall when he heard a sudden scuffling of feet, an oath in the darkness, the harsh breathing of men at grips, the splash of something into the water of the moat. A scattering of arrows whirred and pecked at the walls, one slanting in and smiting the flagstones close to Aymery’s feet. He heard the dull jingle of armed men on the move. Grimbald towered back suddenly out of the night, a red splash of blood on his forehead, his eyes shining in the torchlight. He flung the door to, and ran the oak bar through the staples. “Brother, we are trapped! I took the first of them and pitched him into the moat.” He shook his shaggy head, and looked round the hall. Aymery was buckling on his sword. “There is the garden bridge,” he said. “We can make a dash for it.” “Away, then; they are wading the moat, and climbing the palisade.” Aymery pushed in front of Grimbald as they hurried down a narrow passage-way that led from the hall and the kitchen quarters into the garden. “I go first, brother,” he said. “I have my steel coat; a stab in the dark might find your heart.” Grimbald passed a huge arm about Aymery as they went. “Lad, what is that to me!” They came out into the garden, and stood for a moment listening. They could hear Gaillard’s men beating in the door of the hall, but towards the garden everything seemed quiet. Aymery laid a hand on Grimbald’s arm. “If one of us is taken, brother, let not the other tarry. Remember Denise.” Grimbald understood him. “Come,” he said in an undertone, and they crossed the garden side by side. Now there was a trestle-bridge from the garden over the moat, a footbridge made of a single plank that could be thrust across and withdrawn at pleasure. A wicket in the palisade led to the bridge. Aymery unbarred the gate, and ran the plank forward on to the trestles. “We shall trick them,” he said grimly, “quick, they have broken in.” He ran across the bridge, Grimbald following, the plank creaking and sagging under the priest’s weight. Aymery had stooped to drag the plank away again, when he heard Grimbald give a short, deep cry, and saw him spring forward and smite at something with his axe. “Guard, brother, guard.”