e snatched the
only one at hand from the man-at-arms that carried it.

His men sprang into the guard-room of the keep, realizing from his
almost hysterical manner the urgent need for haste. And while he waited
for them, standing there on the bridge, his torch held high, he scanned
by its lurid red light the water as far as eye could reach on either
side of him.

There was a faint movement on the dark, oily surface for all that no
wind stirred. Not more than four or five minutes could have elapsed
since Garnache's leap, and it would seem as if the last ripple from the
disturbance of his plunge had not yet rolled itself out. But otherwise
there was nothing here, nor did Fortunio expect aught. The window of the
Northern Tower abutted on to the other side of the chateau, and it was
there he must look for traces of the fugitive or for his body.

"Hasten!" he shouted over his shoulder. "Follow me!" And without waiting
for them he ran across the bridge and darted round the building, his
torch scattering a shower of sparks behind him on the night, and sending
little rills of blood-red light down the sword which he still carried.

He gained the spot where Garnache must have fallen, and he stood below
the radiance that clove the night from the shattered window fifty feet
above, casting the light of his torch this way and that over the
black bosom of the moat. Not a ripple moved now upon that even, steely
surface. Voices sounded behind him, and with them a great glare of
ruddy light came to herald the arrival of his men. He turned to them and
pointed with his sword away from the chateau.

"Spread yourselves!" he shouted. "Make search yonder. He cannot have
gone far."

And they, but dimly realizing whom they sought, yet realizing that they
sought a man, dashed off and spread themselves as he had bidden them,
to search the stretch of meadowland, where ill must betide any fugitive,
since no cover offered.

Fortunio remained where he was at the edge of the moat. He stooped,
and waving his torch along the ground he moved to the far angle of the
chateau, examining the soft, oozy clay. It was impossible that a man
could have clambered out over that without leaving some impression. He
reached the corner and found the clay intact; at least, nowhere could
he discover a mark of hands or a footprint set as would be that of a man
emerging from the water.

He retraced his steps and went back until he had reached the eastern
angle of t