CHAPTER X.THE ESCAPE.
Treading softly, and with ears straining for the slightest sound, the two men descended to the first floor of the house.

They heard nothing to alarm them as they crept down, and not until they paused on the first landing to reconnoitre did they even catch the murmur of voices issuing from the guardroom below.

So muffled was the sound that Crispin guessed how matters stood even before he had looked over the balusters into the hall beneath.

The faint grey of the dawn was the only light that penetrated the gloom of that pit.
"The Fates are kind, Kenneth," he whispered.

"Those fools sit with closed doors.