and as soon after dawn as may be attack in earnest."

"Very well, sir," Cuthbert said. "I trust that within five minutes after
your bugle has sounded the white flag will make its appearance on the
keep, but it cannot do so until after you have commenced an attack, or
at least a pretense of an attack."

Two or three hours before daylight Cuthbert accompanied Cnut and
twenty-five picked men of the foresters to the copse. They were provided
with crowbars, and all carried heavy axes. The door was soon pried open.
It opened silently and without a creak.

"It may be," Cnut said, "that the door has not been opened as you say
for years, but it is certain," and he placed his torch to the hinges,
"that it has been well oiled within the last two or three days. No doubt
the baron intended to make his escape this way, should the worst arrive.
Now that we have the door open we had better wait quiet until the dawn
commences. The earl will blow his bugle as a signal for the advance; it
will be another ten minutes before they are fairly engaged, and that
will be enough for us to break open any doors that there may be between
this and the castle, and to force our way inside."

It seemed a long time waiting before the dawn fairly broke--still longer
before the earl's bugle was heard to sound the attack. Then the band,
headed by Cnut and two or three of the strongest of the party entered
the passage.

Cuthbert had had some misgivings as to his mother's injunctions to take
no part in the fray, and it cannot be said that in accompanying the
foresters he obeyed the letter of her instructions. At the same time as