The Young Castellan Part 55

"My duty, Roy," she said. "The one I was proud to perform for your father. Ah, my boy, if he were only here that I might a.s.sist him now!

But no news, Roy; no news. It is cruel work."

"No news is good news, mother," cried Roy, cheerily. "Come and feed me, for I'm terribly hungry again."

An attractive meal was waiting; and to have seen mother and son soon after at the table, no one would have imagined that they were in a beleaguered castle with a strong body of the enemy close at hand.

Roy sat till the clock struck nine, and then rose.

"Then you will get no proper sleep to-night, my boy?" said Lady Royland, as she helped her son to resume his arms.

"Oh, yes; I shall lie down as I am, and jump up at twelve to take the round. I shall be back in my room in a quarter of an hour if the enemy is quiet, and sleep again till four, when I go my round again. I say, isn't it wonderful how one wakes at the right time when one has had a little practice."

"Roy, my boy, it is wearing you out. Let me go and see if the men are doing their duty to-night."

"What nonsense, mother!" cried the lad, merrily. "Just as if this was going to wear me out. To-morrow night old Ben will make the round, and I shall be snoring in my bed. There, good-night."

"Good-night, my darling," cried Lady Royland, pressing him to her breast.

"I say, what a hard-hearted creature I must feel with this on," said Roy, laughing merrily.

"I never notice the cuira.s.s," said Lady Royland, embracing her son again. "I only feel my boy's warm, true heart beating against mine."

She followed him to the door, and he turned and kissed her again, and then hurried away, depressing his sword-hilt to keep the steel end of the scabbard from clinking on the pavement.

"Why did I do that?" said Roy to himself. "It was not as if--as if--Oh, what nonsense! It's the weather makes me feel low; and she feels low too. I was obliged to try and cheer her up."

He mounted to the battlements, whence he entered the room over the guard-chamber where, according to custom now, Ben was waiting with his lighted lantern, and wearing his long cloak, one side of which he threw over the light when he took it up.

"All well, Ben?"

"All's well, sir. Enemy as still as mice. I'm beginning to think that one of these mornings we shall get up and find they've gone without saying good-bye."

"Hope you're right, Ben. Ready?"

"Ready, sir."

"Then march."

They ascended to the top of the gate tower, where they were challenged, and then descended to the rampart to be challenged by the sentinel posted half-way between the towers, and again by the sentry on each tower in turn. It was everywhere the same. The men were well upon the lookout, and they had all the same report to give, that everything was still and nothing had been seen.

"You'll have Master Pawson on duty to-morrow night, so as to relieve one man, Ben," said Roy, as he completed his round.

"Won't relieve no man, sir," said Ben, sourly. "I shall want one to watch that chap to see that he don't do nothing foolish."

"Ah, you're prejudiced. But I say, Ben, suppose we were surprised, how long would it take us to man the walls?"

"Couldn't surprise us, sir," growled the old soldier. "First alarm, the men would be out of the rooms and up atop of the leads at the guns; and all the rest would make for the ramparts, ready to run to any spot that was attacked. We're all right, sir, 'cept one thing."

"What's that?" cried Roy, anxiously.

"Old Jenk is worrying me, sir. He's been wandering about the ramparts to-night in a curious, crazy way, speaking to n.o.body, and acting silly-like. I'm pretty sure it was him as cut that line and let down the flag."

"I'll talk to him to-morrow. Good-night till twelve, Ben. I'm tired, and shall be glad of my rest."

"Good-night till twelve, captain," said the old soldier; and Roy went to his room, took off helmet and sword-belt, and threw himself upon a couch, to forget all his low spirits and troubles in less than a minute, falling at once into a deep sleep, from which he started at the first chime of the tower clock.

The little lamp was burning dimly now on the mantelpiece, but it gave him light enough to buckle on his sword; and as he did so, the chiming and striking of the midnight hour went on in the midst of what seemed an unnatural silence, which impressed him. The next moment his helmet was on, and he stepped quickly out into the corridor, to find it full of armed men, four of whom dashed at him as his hand flew to his side, and he drew his sword.

It was a vain effort; his arms were roughly grasped, and the cry he tried to raise was smothered by a hand pressed upon his mouth; while, by the light of a lantern raised on high, he saw the figure of the secretary, who stepped forward and took the sword wrenched from his hand.

"Thanks, my brave young castellan," he said, mockingly. "We will take off your steel toys and gewgaws by-and-by. One word, though," he said, in a fierce whisper: "make the slightest sound, and you will be thrown into the moat. Be silent, and we will recollect that you are only a boy, and treat you as one."

For answer, Roy threw all his strength into one desperate effort, wrenched his head round so that it was clear of the hand pressed upon it, and shrieked out the one word--

"Judas!"

The word seemed to cut into the wretched traitor's brain; and, raising the boy's sword, he struck at him; but the blade glanced from the perfectly tempered helmet, and the next moment one who seemed to be an officer interposed.

"Prisoners are not treated like that, sir," he said, sternly. "Which way now?"

"This," said the secretary; and he led the way along the corridor, towards the door opening upon the court-yard.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

A DARK NIGHT'S DEEDS.

At that moment, when Roy would have surrendered his life to have rung out an alarm, the signal of danger, treachery, and hopeless disaster rang out in the form of a shot from the battlements overhead, and this was followed by another and another. But as the prisoner was hurried into the open air, armed men seemed to be gliding out of the darkness on all sides, their source, as far as he could make out in those agitated moments, being the bases of the towers. Then, as the trumpet rang out, fighting began all around the castle at once, not from the outside, but from within. Men had evidently crept silently up to the four towers, and gathered there from the corridors to which they had been admitted; and at the sound of the trumpet, a simultaneous attack was made, which, coming from the unguarded rear, and in tremendous, constantly increasing force, could not fail of being successful.

Roy stood there in the midst of his mother's once pleasant garden, with the stars glinting over his head, and guarded by half-a-dozen troopers, listening to the clash of steel, and the firing going on all round where the little garrison made desperate efforts to maintain themselves. But they could not even grow stronger by joining, for the occupants of each tower were isolated and driven back as they tried to communicate with their officers, who, at the first alarm, tried to lead the men in the guard-room to the gathering point selected in case of emergency. Ben had just lit his lantern, expecting the coming of Roy at twelve, when the first shot came; and, shouting an alarm, he drew his sword to dash out, but only to be hurled back, the door-way of the guard-room being blocked by men; while, when the occupants of the chambers beneath the platforms of each tower tried to descend, they, too, in spite of desperate efforts, were driven upward by the constantly arriving enemies, who forced them on to the leads by the now useless guns.

Here, in each case, a desperate encounter went on, which Roy, with his blood running cold, was able to mentally picture, as he stood there listening to the wild shouts of the attacking party, the defiant cries of the garrison--the mere handfuls of men who tried to hold their own.

There was no more firing: all was being done with the keen-edged naked blade for a few minutes; and this was followed by a wild despairing cry from the gate tower, and directly after there was a dull, sickening crash which told that a man had been hurled from the parapet into the court-yard, where he lay never to move again.

The shock of this was succeeded by others nearly as terrible, as the struggle went on at the tops of the different towers; and cry after cry arose, followed by heavy splash after splash, which, Roy interpreted rightly, meant that the victors were driving the defenders over the battlements into the moat, to sink or swim for life as they could.

A mad feeling of rage and despair seized upon the boy as he heard all this, and he struggled desperately with his captors in his endeavours to escape, and try to aid the poor fellows fighting to the death in their vain efforts to defend the place.

Vain, too, were his efforts; for a couple of men held him while others wrenched his arms behind his back, and tearing off his gay scarf, bound his elbows so tightly together that he could not stir, but had to listen helplessly to the yells and despairing cries that arose towards the silent vault of heaven.

It seemed to Roy like an hour of horror, during which he was listening to what seemed to be the ma.s.sacre of the men, every one of whom he looked upon as a friend. But it was only a matter of a few minutes at the most, before a shout rang out from the top of the gate tower, to be answered with a burst of wild "hurrahs" from the four corners, and the ramparts as well; for the clas.h.i.+ng of swords, the yells of rage, and the sounds of fierce and desperate struggles going on had ceased.

Roy's despair was at its height; he knew that the castle was taken, and its defenders killed, hurled into the moat, or captive.

But the boy's sinking heart gave one leap, for he knew that the flickering fire of defence blazed up in one spot, and that was in the guard-room, where he calculated that there must be twelve or fourteen men, with Ben Martlet, Farmer Raynes, and the corporal.