had been born in Bordeaux, and the prince
might leave his spouse with an easy mind, for all was well with mother
and with child.

The keys of the mountain passes still lay in the hands of the shifty and
ignoble Charles of Navarre, who had chaffered and bargained both with
the English and with the Spanish, taking money from the one side to hold
them open and from the other to keep them sealed. The mallet hand of
Edward, however, had shattered all the schemes and wiles of the plotter.
Neither entreaty nor courtly remonstrance came from the English prince;
but Sir Hugh Calverley passed silently over the border with his company,
and the blazing walls of the two cities of Miranda and Puenta de la
Reyna warned the unfaithful monarch that there were other metals besides
gold, and that he was dealing with a man to whom it was unsafe to lie.
His price was paid, his objections silenced, and the mountain gorges lay
open to the invaders. From the Feast of the Epiphany there was mustering
and massing, until, in the first week of February--three days after the
White Company joined the army--the word was given for a general advance
through the defile of Roncesvalles. At five in the cold winter's morning
the bugles were blowing in the hamlet of St. Jean Pied-du-Port, and by
six Sir Nigel's Company, three hundred strong, were on their way for the
defile, pushing swiftly in the dim light up the steep curving road; for
it was the prince's order that they should be the first to pass through,
and that they should remain on guard at the further end until the whole
army had emerged from the mountains. Day was already breaking in the
east, and the summits of the great peaks had turned rosy red, while the
valleys still lay in the shadow, when they found themselves with the
cliffs on either hand and the long, rugged pass stretching away before
them.

Sir Nigel rode his great black war-horse at the head of his archers,
dressed in full armor, with Black Simon bearing his banner behind him,
while Alleyne at his bridle-arm carried his blazoned shield and his
well-steeled ashen spear. A proud and happy man was the knight, and many
a time he turned in his saddle to look at the long column of bowmen who
swung swiftly along behind him.

"By Saint Paul! Alleyne," said he, "this pass is a very perilous place,
and I would that the King of Navarre had held it against us, for it
would have been a very honorable venture had it fallen to us to win a
passage