He had heard the voice of Dorothy as he rode out, and knew to whom he owed it.

But yet there was a chance.

Rousing the porter with such a noisy reveillee as drowned in his sleepy ears the cries of the warder and those that followed him, he gave the watchword, and the huge key was just turning in the wards when the clang of the alarm-bell suddenly racked the air.

The porter stayed his hand, and stood listening.
'Open the gate,' said Richard in authoritative tone.
'I will know first, master,--' began the man.
'Dost not hear the bell ?' cried Richard.

'How long wilt thou endanger the castle by thy dulness ?' 'I shall know first,' repeated the man deliberately, 'what that bell--' Ere he could finish the sentence, the butt of Richard's whip had laid him along the threshold of the gate.