Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/330

moon's rays strayed into its narrow black aisle of stone, with the double line of cells flanking its length; a single footfall overheard, a single echo sounding down the silence, and the sleeping monks would pour out of their lairs upon him. While waiting, he had bound his feet with withes of hay, so that they fell noiselessly on the pavement; and the hound stole softly on, as he had been bred to steal on a roebuck's slot or a brigand's track. The first thing Erceldoune sought was to make the road free to leave the building; he found his way, that he had carefully noted as he came, back to the great entrance. The whole place was still; there was not a sound; he passed uninterruptedly to the vaulted gate-passage. Here a single oil-lamp burned, its light dully shed on the broad low oak door, with its iron cramps and fastenings. He drew back the bolts gently, and turned the keys in the two ponderous locks; the door would open now at a touch. He motioned to the hound to wait and guard it; the dog understood the trust, and couched motionless as though cast in bronze; a truer or a bolder sentinel could not be placed there, and it was not for the first time that the brave sagacious Servian monarch had been trusted in a crisis of life or death. Then rapidly, and with the light swift tread of a deer,