tters! What aileth you?" said Dick. "'Tis a most
excellent good fortune, this Joanna; it will take their minds from us."

"Dick," cried Matcham, "I am lost; we are both lost. Let us flee if
there be yet time. They will not rest till they have found me. Or, see!
let me go forth; when they have found me, ye may flee. Let me forth,
Dick--good Dick, let me away!"

She was groping for the bolt, when Dick at last comprehended.

"By the mass!" he cried, "y'are no Jack; y'are Joanna Sedley; y'are the
maid that would not marry me!"

The girl paused, and stood silent and motionless. Dick, too, was silent
for a little; then he spoke again.

"Joanna," he said, "y' 'ave saved my life, and I have saved yours; and
we have seen blood flow, and been friends and enemies--ay, and I took my
belt to thrash you; and all that time I thought ye were a boy. But now
death has me, and my time's out, and before I die I must say this: Y'
are the best maid and the bravest under heaven, and, if only I could
live, I would marry you blithely; and, live or die, I love you."

She answered nothing.

"Come," he said, "speak up, Jack. Come, be a good maid, and say ye love
me!"

"Why, Dick," she cried, "would I be here?"

"Well, see ye here," continued Dick, "an we but escape whole we'll
marry; and an we're to die, we die, and there's an end on't. But now
that I think, how found ye my chamber?"

"I asked it of Dame Hatch," she answered.

"Well, the dame's staunch," he answered; "she'll not tell upon you. We
have time before us."

And just then, as if to contradict his words, feet came down the
corridor, and a fist beat roughly on the door.

"Here!" cried a voice. "Open, Master Dick; open!"

Dick neither moved nor answered.

"It is all over," said the girl; and she put her arms about Dick's neck.

One after another, men came trooping to the door. Then Sir Daniel
arrived himself, and there was a sudden cessation of the noise.

"Dick," cried the knight, "be not an ass. The Seven Sleepers had been
awake ere now. We know she is within there. Open, then, the door, man."

Dick was again silent.

"Down with it," said Sir Daniel. And immediately his followers fell
savagely upon the door with foot and fist. Solid as it was, and strongly
bolted, it would soon have given way; but once more fortune interfered.
Over the thunder-storm of blows the cry of a sentinel was heard; it was
followed by another; shouts ran along the battlements, shouts answer