Then must you take to the woods quickly." So he turned and went in before me.

There were some twenty yards of courtyard to be crossed before we came to the great timber-built hall, round which the other buildings clustered inside the palisades.

But there were no men about, though I could hear them whistling at their morning's work in the stables, for the idle time of the day was yet to come.

Only a boy crossed from one side to the other on some errand, behind us, and paid no attention beyond pausing a little to stare, as I could judge by his footsteps.

At any other time I should not have noticed even that, but now that I was in the very jaws of the wolf, as it were, I saw and heard everything.