Cornered like rats, they took small comfort from the odds. They were
ready to surrender, still readier to run, and they stood on their
defence with no fight in their faces, whining in their several patois.
All but the man from the south. He was creeping round in the darkness by
the walls, and had in his hands a knife. No mailed hauberk protected
the interloper's back and there was a space there for steel to quiver
between his shoulder blades.

The newcomer did not see, but the eyes of the wounded man seemed to
have been cleared by the scuffle. He was now free, and from the floor he
snatched the round shield which the ex-priest had carried, and hurled it
straight at the creeping miscreant. It was a heavy oaken thing with rim
and boss of iron, and it caught him fairly above the ear, so that he
dropped like a poled ox. The stranger turned his head to see what was
happening. "A lucky shot, friend," he cried. "I thank you." And he
addressed himself to the two pitiful bandits who remained.

But their eyes were looking beyond him to the door, and their jaws had
dropped in terror. For from outside came the sound of horses' hooves and
bridles, and two riders had dismounted and were peering into the hut.
The first was a very mountain of a man, whose conical helmet surmounted
a vast pale face, on which blond moustaches hung like the teeth of a
walrus. The said helmet was grievously battered, and the nose-piece was
awry as if from some fierce blow, but there was no scar on the skin. His
long hauberk was wrought in scales of steel and silver, and the fillets
which bound his great legs were of fine red leather. Behind him came
a grizzled squire, bearing a kite-shaped shield painted with the
cognisance of a dove.

"What have we here?" said the knight in a reedy voice like a boy's. His
pale eyes contemplated the figures--the wounded man, now faint again
with pain and half-fallen on the litter of branches; his deliverer, tall
and grim, but with laughing face; the two murderers cringing in their
fear; in a corner the huddled body of the man from the south half hidden
by the shield. "Speak, fellow," and he addressed the soldier. "What work
has been toward? Have you not had your bellyfull of battles that you
must scrabble like rats in this hovel? What are you called, and whence
come you?"

The soldier lifted his brow, looked his questioner full in the face,
and, as if liking what he found there, bowed his head in respect. The
huge man