he
horse-hoofs.

However, they got safely in, after much knocking and calling, through
the postern gate in the high west wall, into a mansion, the description
whereof I must defer to the next chapter, seeing that the moon has
already sunk into the Atlantic, and there is darkness over land and sea.

Sir Richard, in his long gown, was soon downstairs in the hall; the
letter read, and the story told; but ere it was half finished--

"Anthony, call up a groom, and let him bring me a horse round.
Gentlemen, if you will excuse me five minutes, I shall be at your
service."

"You will not go alone, Richard?" asked Lady Grenville, putting her
beautiful face in its nightcoif out of an adjoining door.

"Surely, sweet chuck, we three are enough to take two poor polecats of
Jesuits. Go in, and help me to boot and gird."

In half an hour they were down and up across the valley again, under the
few low ashes clipt flat by the sea-breeze which stood round the lonely
gate of Chapel.

"Mr. Cary, there is a back path across the downs to Marsland; go and
guard that." Cary rode off; and Sir Richard, as he knocked loudly at the
gate--

"Mr. Leigh, you see that I have consulted your honor, and that of your
poor uncle, by adventuring thus alone. What will you have me do now,
which may not be unfit for me and you?"

"Oh, sir!" said Amyas, with tears in his honest eyes, "you have shown
yourself once more what you always have been--my dear and beloved master
on earth, not second even to my admiral Sir Francis Drake."

"Or the queen, I hope," said Grenville, smiling, "but pocas palabras.
What will you do?"

"My wretched cousin, sir, may not have returned--and if I might watch
for him on the main road--unless you want me with you."

"Richard Grenville can walk alone, lad. But what will you do with your
cousin?"

"Send him out of the country, never to return; or if he refuses, run him
through on the spot."

"Go, lad." And as he spoke, a sleepy voice asked inside the gate, "Who
was there?"

"Sir Richard Grenville. Open, in the queen's name?"

"Sir Richard? He is in bed, and be hanged to you. No honest folk come at
this hour of night."

"Amyas!" shouted Sir Richard. Amyas rode back.

"Burst that gate for me, while I hold your horse."

Amyas leaped down, took up a rock from the roadside, such as Homer's
heroes used to send at each other's heads, and in an instant the door
was flat on the ground, and the serving-man on his back