Yet there could be no pause. For down in the courtyard, Arno now bound the horse stem to stern with the pulley rope and led the mare back, to hoist the spike smoothly into the air.

Connor saw it come, and high upon his perilous perch he saw more clearly than any man the light of dawn arrayed upon the eastern horizon, and he saw that in minutes, unless there was a man at the steeple top to guide the spike home, Sol’s fiery orb would crack the eastern horizon, and their mission fail.

So that Connor did not wait, but hauled himself upward again, and one hand upon the ladder was bare, and the other gloved.

Wait!’ Griffin’s thin cry rang out below, but to no avail, and he set foot upon the ladder and climbed swiftly after his broth- er. Then his punctured hand began to bleed but still he came on, and above him Connor’s climb was suddenly halted. So that the boy reached him at last, panting, and blurted his warning.

‘Con! It’s not safe for you!’

Then brother trembled against brother as Connor put a strong arm around Griffin in that dizzy place.

It’s safe for no one, Griffin. The spike not raised — still not! And look!’

Then Griffin saw that his brother’s climb was halted by the missing rungs knocked away by Connor’s fall, and the ladder could be scaled by no man. Yet lie saw the gap was such that he might use his brother’s shoulder as a step, and reach across it And the boy hardly paused.

‘Lift me.’ ‘Griffin! Can you do it?’ ‘Yes.’

Can the one give to protect the whole, or will the relentless tirade of death overcome all?

SEE CHAPTER XX