"Ye gods of Love!" exclaimed Sir Richard beneath his breath. "The very yearnings of Tantalus are at this moment put to the blush! Was ever a champion avowed under like romantic circumstances? Was ever a maiden wooed through a two-foot, key-cold wall?" He then sent the pliant steel back through the wall, which he erroneously supposed to be constructed out of solid stone. In another moment there came to his impatiently waiting hand a very small cutting of saffron velvet, the which he touched reverently to his lips, as was becoming in a loyal champion, and then placed devoutly next his heart. He whispered again, and again he whispered, but no answer came. Observing the precaution of scraping away a bit of mortar from another wall, he carefully concealed the opening. Upon which he replaced the bed in its former position, secured the note within the fillet of his helmet and once more sought his pillow, where he fell asleep presently in the midst of meditating as to the means through which he might, in safety to her, effect the deliverance of the fair unknown. Yet not half so fair, nor yet half so lovely, was the vision that he materialized from the scrap of saffron velvet as was its beautiful owner, whom an unkind Fate decreed he should not set eyes upon till many days crowded with many misadventures had passed away. CHAPTER VI THE PAVILION OF PURPLE AND BLACK It was a trifle past midnight when de Claverlok and the men he had commissioned to bring with him halted in the highroad before the door of the Red Tavern. Coincident with their arrival the hitherto deserted and lonely appearing hostelry was magically metamorphosed into a hive of buzzing industry. The near vicinity of the building became brilliantly illuminated with the flare of many links, the iron pikes of which had been struck into the earth from the roadway to the entrance of the inn. That the scene was one of martial activities could in no wise be mistaken, for the yellow light of the torches was reflected and repeated against a goodly number of steel cuirasses and polished bucklers.