CHAPTER 15

From the long, narrow stone-paved Armory Court, and connecting it with
the inner Buttery Court, ran a narrow arched passage-way, in which was
a picket-gate, closed at night and locked from within. It was in this
arched passage-way that, according to little Robert Ingoldsby's report,
the bachelors were lying in wait for Myles. Gascoyne's plan was that
Myles should enter the court alone, the Knights of the Rose lying
ambushed behind the angle of the armory building until the bachelors
should show themselves.

It was not without trepidation that Myles walked alone into the court,
which happened then to be silent and empty. His heart beat more quickly
than it was wont, and he gripped his cudgel behind his back, looking
sharply this way and that, so as not to be taken unawares by a flank
movement of his enemies. Midway in the court he stopped and hesitated
for a moment; then he turned as though to enter the armory. The next
moment he saw the bachelors come pouring out from the archway.

Instantly he turned and rushed back towards where his friends lay
hidden, shouting: "To the rescue! To the rescue!"

"Stone him!" roared Blunt. "The villain escapes!"

He stopped and picked up a cobble-stone as he spoke, flinging it after
his escaping prey. It narrowly missed Myles's head; had it struck him,
there might have been no more of this story to tell.