"Good-night, Roxley!" said the Captain. "Lock the door after us." But he drew the soldier aside. "Look here, Roxley, we start early; sleep soundly, but not too soundly. We ain't setting an example of discipline to the service to-night! Boyd's hand might be tempted to do--one knows not exactly what. Another time, when we have prisoners, we had best rest earlier--and drink less. Mum's the word, though, Roxley." With a parting glance at the supposed Highlander, who sat on a stool by the chimney-piece, the very model of a steadfast, awkward Scotch farm-servant, expecting to be well-feed for an irksome duty, the Captain allowed Boyd to conduct him from the East Room. Roxley made a remark or two to his mute aid, while pulling off his boots. "Rouse me, if aught goes amiss," he said, with a hiccough, "but not unless--and I don't promise this--you can wake me any easier than Dawkin over there. You and I'll call it our night off duty--eh?--now that Captain's gone." Whereupon Roxley sighed and hiccoughed again, and laid himself at full length across one of Mistress Annan's best coverlets; and, in a trice, could not have been roused by the incoming of his own horse at a trot. So it is. Stillness, stillness, all through the Manor House. Dull comes the sound of one o'clock. Jermain sleeps; Roxley and Dawkin sleep; Saville and Tracey sleep. Boyd and Andrew are hidden in the garret until an appointed signal; the lad's eyes shut involuntarily from pure fatigue. Geoffry, Lord Armitage, in what of peril thou must yet meet before this wonderful night shall give place to dawn, may the Lord of the defenceless be thy helper! CHAPTER VIII. MEETING--FLIGHT. Again came the muffled chime of the antique clock down-stairs; the quarter-hour. Strange sight--the sentinel in the East Room moves. He cautiously lays aside his cutlass; his brogans he had taken off, as if to ease his feet, when he sat down. Like a thief, he walks from his stool to the bed, then to the sofa. The sleepers are as those dead. He goes to the old door of the strong-room and lays his ear to each crevice. "Too well-joinered yet," he says to himself, "for me to try opening my lips from here, were he close beside it. Will he hear this, I wonder!" Gradually augmenting the sound, he imitates with his nails the scratch of a rat in the wall. But no responsive signal traverses the barrier. Nevertheless, when he repeats it he fancies that there filters to his ear, from the stillness within, a faint, prolonged whistle. "It is the only way," he decides, raising himself from the floor. The bolt is on the hall-door, as Captain Jermain directed. Our disguised knight need dread no interruption thence. He advances again, on tiptoe, to the motionless figure on the bed.