No one spoke. The candle shook in my lady’s hand till it threatened to fall and leave us in utter darkness. Dame Franklin and the old soldier were frozen in their places. Then again:
“Oh, Mother,” I whispered, “the passage! The secret passage! Our enemies have found it.”
There was another fearsome silence. Then again—Tap tap—tap—tap tap.
Then the echoes of the great vault were roused by a loud, clear call from my lady mother:
“Oh, my lord! My Lord Mountjoy, is it thou?”
There came a muffled voice in reply, and again we heard the tapping.
[Illustration: _DAME FRANKLIN AND THE OLD SOLDIER WERE FROZEN IN THEIR PLACES_]
At once she leaped toward the wall with a glad cry:
“Oh, my lord, my lord, have patience but a moment. I will undo the door.”
She brushed aside some old and mildewed hangings, all heavy with dust and grime, and brought to view a small iron door. Snatching from her girdle the largest key, she fitted it into the lock. Still, try as she would, she could not turn it till old Marvin came to her help. Then indeed the rusty lock gave way, the door swung slowly open, and my father, the Lord of Mountjoy, followed by half a score of knights and men-at-arms, stepped forth into the candlelight.
When Lady Mountjoy at last was free from my father’s embrace, she stood with her hands on his shoulders and asked a dozen questions, demanding that he answer all at once.
“Whence comest thou, my lord? Are the Scots beaten? Had’st thou news of the treachery of the Old Wolf of Carleton? How many men hast thou? Oh! I had forgot this secret passage and the door to which thou gavest me the key on our wedding day. My foolish men, and almost myself, believed thy signal was a ghostly tapping. But Dickon remembered the passage; and when I had thrice heard the signal I knew it for the knock that thou makest at my door,—the signal that means thee and none else in the world.”
Meanwhile old Marvin had made fast the secret door, and we all were moving toward the stairway, my father’s arm encased in link armor thrown around the waist of the castle’s mistress.
“Welladay, my dearest Kate! Not quite so fast and I will tell thee. The Scots are beaten; and we of Mountjoy had an honorable share in it. The campaign goes on, but a loyal youth from Mountjoy village found me after the battle and told of the doings of the traitor, Carleton. Straightway I took the boy before the King. And he being pleased with some work I had done that day, did bid me take ten of my best men, make my choice of ten horses from his train, and ride post haste to the relief of my house and my lady. We reached the Tarn Rock, half a league from here, at nightfall, and reconnoitered Carleton’s camp. He being in greater force than we could cope with at once, I bethought me of this old passage from the wood two furlongs off. And so I have been tap, tap tapping for an hour, hoping at last to get the news of my coming to thee. And art thou well, my Kate? And have the rascals done aught to harm thee or Dickon here?”