Now went there up a roar, deep-lunged and ominous; brawny fists were shaken and weapons flashed and glittered.
"Ah--we know him--the Red Wolf--we know him--ah!"
"Then tell me," said Beltane, "will not steel cut? Will not fire burn? Arise, I say, rise up and follow me. So will we smite Tyranny this night and ere the dawn Garthlaxton shall be ablaze!"
"Garthlaxton!" cried Eric, "Garthlaxton!" and thereafter all men stared on Beltane as one that is mad.
"Look now," said Beltane, "Sir Pertolepe hath ridden forth with all his company to join Black Ivo's banner. Thus, within Garthlaxton his men be few; moreover I know a secret way beneath the wall. Well, is't enough? Who among ye will follow, and smite for freedom and Pentavalon?"
"That will I!" cried Eric, falling upon his knee.
"And I! And I!" cried others, and so came they to crowd eagerly about Beltane, to touch his hand or the links of his bright mail.
"Nay first--hearken! From henceforth outlaws are ye none. Come now, one and all, draw, and swear me on your swords:--To make your strength a shelter to the weak; to smite henceforth but in honourable cause for freedom, for justice and Pentavalon--swear me upon your swords to abide by this oath, and to him that breaks it--Death. Swear!"
So there upon their knees with gleaming swords uplifted, these wild men swore the oath. Then up sprang Walkyn, pointing to Beltane with his axe.
"Brothers!" he cried, "behold a man that doeth such deeds as no man ever did--that burned the gallows--burst ope the dungeon of Belsaye and slew Tostig the mighty with naked hands! Behold Beltane the Duke! Is he not worthy to be our leader--shall we not follow him?" Then came a roar of voices:
"On, then!" cried Walkyn, his glittering axe aloft. "To Garthlaxton!"
Then from an hundred brawny throats a roar went up to heaven, a cry that hissed through clenched teeth and rang from eager lips, wilder, fiercer than before. And the cry was:--
It was in the cold, still hour 'twixt night and dawn that Beltane halted his wild company upon the edge of the forest where ran a water-brook gurgling softly in the dark; here did he set divers eager fellows to fell a tree and thereafter to lop away branch and twig, and so, bidding them wait, stole forward alone. Soon before him rose Garthlaxton, frowning blacker than the night, a gloom of tower and turret, of massy wall and battlement, its mighty keep rising stark and grim against a faint light of stars. Now as he stood to scan with purposeful eye donjon and bartizan, merlon and arrow-slit for gleam of light, for glint of mail or pike-head, he grew aware of a sound hard by, yet very faint and sweet, that came and went--a small and silvery chime he could by no means account for. So crept he near and nearer, quick-eyed and with ears on the stretch till he was stayed by the broad, sluggish waters of the moat; and thus, he presently espied something that moved in the gloom high above the great gateway, something that stirred, pendulous, in the cold-breathing air of coming dawn.