CHAPTER VIII--OF CERTAIN QUARRELS THAT CAME ON THE HANDS OF NORMAN LESLIE.
Belike I had dropped asleep, outwearied with what had befallen me, mind and body, but I started up suddenly at the sound of a dagger-hilt smitten against the main door of the house, and a voice crying, "Open, in the name of the Dauphin." They had come in quest of me, and when I heard them, it was as if a hand had given my heart a squeeze, and for a moment my breath seemed to be stopped.

This past, I heard the old serving-woman fumbling with the bolts, and peering from behind the curtain of my casement, I saw that the ways were dark, and the narrow street was lit up with flaring torches, the lights wavering in the wind.

I stepped to the wide ingle, thinking to creep into the secret hiding-hole.

But to what avail?
It might have served my turn if my escape alive from the moat had only been guessed, but now my master must have told all the story, and the men-at-arms must be assured that I was within.

Thinking thus, I stood at pause, when a whisper came, as if from within the ingle-- "Unbar the door, and hide not." It must be Elliot's voice, speaking through some tube contrived in the ingle of the dwelling-room below or otherwise.