red out into the hall and up the stairs, with
confused shouts that something must be amiss.

Within the room that sheltered him Crispin chuckled, as he ran his hand
along the edge of the door until he found the bolt, and softly shot it
home.

"'Slife," he muttered, "'twas a close thing! Aye, shout, you cuckolds,"
he went on. "Yell yourselves hoarse as the crows you are! You'll hang us
where Gives are hanged, will you?"

Kenneth tugged at the skirts of his doublet. "What now?" he inquired.

"Now," said Crispin, "we'll leave by the window, if it please you."

They crossed the room, and a moment or two later they had dropped on
to the narrow railed pathway overlooking the river, which Crispin had
observed from their prison window the evening before. He had observed,
too, that a small boat was moored at some steps about a hundred yards
farther down the stream, and towards that spot he now sped along
the footpath, followed closely by Kenneth. The path sloped in that
direction, so that by the time the spot was reached the water flowed not
more than six feet or so beneath them. Half a dozen steps took them
down this to the moorings of that boat, which fortunately had not been
removed.

"Get in, Kenneth," Crispin commanded. "There, I'll take the oars, and
I'll keep under shelter of the bank lest those blunderers should bethink
them of looking out of our prison window. Oddswounds, Kenneth, I am
hungry as a wolf, and as dry--ough, as dry as Dives when he begged for a
sup of water. Heaven send we come upon some good malignant homestead ere
we go far, where a Christian may find a meal and a stoup of ale. 'Tis a
miracle I had strength enough to crawl downstairs. Swounds, but an empty
stomach is a craven comrade in a desperate enterprise. Hey! Have a care,
boy. Now, sink me if this milksop hasn't fainted!"

CHAPTER XI. THE ASHBURNS

Gregory Ashburn pushed back his chair and made shift to rise from the
table at which he and his brother had but dined.

He was a tall, heavily built man, with a coarse, florid countenance set
in a frame of reddish hair that hung straight and limp. In the colour of
their hair lay the only point of resemblance between the brothers.
For the rest Joseph was spare and of middle weight, pale of face,
thin-lipped, and owning a cunning expression that was rendered very evil
by virtue of the slight cast in his colourless eyes.

In earlier life Gregory had not been unhandsome; debauchery and sl