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The strangers disappeared from the scene with a rapidity that seemed
suspicious; and, while the outlaws fell to the congenial task of rifling
the dead bodies, Dick made once more the circuit of the garden wall to
examine the front of the house. In a little upper loophole of the roof
he beheld a light set; and as it would certainly be visible in town from
the back windows of Sir Daniel's mansion, he doubted not that this was
the signal feared by Hawksley, and that ere long the lances of the Knight
of Tunstall would arrive upon the scene.
He put his ear to the ground, and it seemed to him as if he heard a
jarring and hollow noise from townward. Back to the beach he went
hurrying. But the work was already done; the last body was disarmed and
stripped to the skin, and four fellows were already wading seaward to
commit it to the mercies of the deep.
A few minutes later, when there debauched out of the nearest lanes of
Shoreby some two score horsemen, hastily arrayed and moving at the gallop
of their steeds, the neighbourhood of the house beside the sea was
entirely silent and deserted.
Meanwhile, Dick and his men had returned to the ale-house of the Goat and
Bagpipes to snatch some hours of sleep before the morning tryst.
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