s as best we may."

Nicanor shook his head.

"Nay, I stay here. Go thou thy way, and may thy faring prosper. Now tell
of our lord and his escape."

Wardo laughed.

"Ho, there was work which thou shouldst have seen!" He told of Wulf, and
of the fighting which was done within the villa; of the flight from the
house, the long ride by cart-track and highway to Calleva, with his lady
crouched in front of him and her hair blowing over his hands. And here
Nicanor broke in.

"Thou there with her, and I--Tell me, man, was she hurt or frightened?
Did she swoon or weep?"

"How could I see?" said Wardo. "I stood, and she kneeled before me. And
little did I care whether she wept or swooned, when the grays were
plunging like to tear my arms from my body, and it was all I could do to
keep upon two wheels. There went my lord ahead, and here pounded I
after, and alongside rode my lord Marius, watching his wife and itching
to be back and have it out with those reavers. I saw it in his eye. Eh,
that was a wild night. We made the Bibracte road, and doubled back
eastward, and so rode for Londinium. But at the second miliarium from
Bibracte the grays gave out. So my lord Marius took my lady upon his
saddle, and they all went on, bidding me follow as soon as might be. But
by the grace of the gods, I was too late. When I reached the port, my
lord and his people had set sail for Gaul. Well, then, if thou wilt not
come with us, when things be settled, and a man may know better what to
look for, I shall come and seek thee, and we will have a talk over old
days together, and spill a drop or so to Bacchus. Until then, comrade o'
mine, farewell."

They grasped hands, and Sada smiled a farewell at Nicanor. The two went
on, then, and left him standing there, and he watched them pass away
into the glinting light and shade until Sada's crimson mantle was lost
in the green gloom of trees. He took his slow way back toward Thorney,
musing as he walked.

"This day mine eyes have looked on life and death, and all that death
mourns and life clamors is Love, Love, and again Love. Strange that
something all men must love, who cannot live for themselves alone, no
matter how they try."

He came down from his dreams at the stepping-stones of the marsh-ford,
to find himself all but overrunning a child who stood upon the bank and
wept because he feared to cross--a small atom of a man, with little
tunic torn and puckered face of woe. At sight of Nicanor h