"In sooth you do," she said, "if Robert Lindsay of the Scottish Archers
finds you here. He loves not that another should take his place at a
tryst."

"Maiden," I said, beginning to understand why the gate was unlocked, and
wherefore it went so smooth on its hinges, "I fear I have slain a man,
one of the King's archers. We wrestled together on the drawbridge, and
the palisade breaking, we fell into the moat, whence I clomb by the
hidden stairs."

"One of the archers!" cried she, as pale as a lily, and catching at her
side with her hand. "Was he a Scot?"

"No, maid, but I am; and I pray you hide me, or show me how to escape
from this castle with my life, and that speedily."

"Come hither!" she said, drawing me through a door into a small, square,
empty room that jutted out above the moat. "The other maids are at their
dinner," she went on, "and I all alone--the season being Lent, and I
under penance, and thinking of no danger."

For which reason, I doubt not, namely that the others had gone forth, she
had made her tryst at this hour with Robin Lindsay. But he, if he was,
as she said, one of the Scottish archers that guarded the gate, was busy
enough belike with the tumult on the bridge, or in seeking for the body
of mine enemy.

"How to get you forth I know not," she said, "seeing that from yonder
room you pass into the kitchen and thence into the guard-room, and thence