“I have known men escape from worse than this,” I said, thinking of Lodbrok, and turning over many wild plans in my mind.

“I had forgotten this danger of wooden walls,” said the prior to himself, as it were.  “Doubtless when this well chamber was made it was without the inclosure.”

Now it seemed to me that this could not be borne much longer, and that soon the walls he dreaded would fall.  So as one might as well die in one way as another, I thought I would climb to the well’s mouth and see if there were any chance of safety for these two monks.  Yet I had no thought of aught but dying with them, if need were, though as for myself I had but to walk across the courtyard and go away.  The Danes would but think I lingered yet for the sake of plunder.

“If we may not stand this smoke, neither can the Danes,” I said.  “I am going to see.”

So I set down my axe and sword and leapt sailor-wise at the rope—­which the men had dropped again when they had taken the helm from the bucket—­catching it easily and swarming up to the trapdoor.  I only raised myself to the height of my eyes and looked out.

I could see nothing.  The dense smoke eddied and circled round the court, and the Danes were gone, leaving us in a ring of fire on three sides.  The wooden buildings were blazing higher every moment, and the heat seemed to scorch my head and hands till I could scarcely bear it.  But as the wind drove aside the smoke I could see that the way to the rear gate, the last we had barred, was clear.  So I slid down and hung opposite the chamber.  The monks looked out at me with white faces.

“It may be done,” I said.  “Come quickly! it is the only chance.”

The prior gave me the rope-ladder end without a word, not needing to be asked for it; nor did I wait to say more, for at that moment a roof fell in with a great crash, and a red glare filled the well as the flames shot up, and the sparks and bits of burning timber came down the shaft and hissed into the water below me.

I clomb up, fixed the ladder, and called down to the prior to bring my arms with him.  There was a burning beam not three feet from the well mouth, part of the fallen roof that had slipped sideways from it.  The flames that shot up from the building were so hot that I could barely abide them, and I shaded my face with both my hands, crying again to the monks to come quickly.

In a few seconds came the sacristan, white and trembling—­I had to help him out of the well mouth.  The prior was close to him; he was calm, and even smiled at me as he saw me clutch my arms eagerly.

“To the rear gate,” I said, turning and kicking the ladder into the well, and thinking how cool the splash was compared with this furnace of heat.  “Kilt up your frocks and go swiftly, but run not,” for in that smoke, save their long garments betrayed them, a man might be armed or unarmed for all that one could see.