eaming eye, which shone brightly from under a thick tuft
of grizzled brow, he seemed to Alleyne to have something of the look
of some fierce old bird of prey. For a moment he smiled, as his eye lit
upon the banner of the five roses waving from the hamlet; but his course
lay for Pampeluna, and he rode on after the archers.

Close at his heels came sixteen squires, all chosen from the highest
families, and behind them rode twelve hundred English knights, with
gleam of steel and tossing of plumes, their harness jingling, their long
straight swords clanking against their stirrup-irons, and the beat of
their chargers' hoofs like the low deep roar of the sea upon the shore.
Behind them marched six hundred Cheshire and Lancashire archers, bearing
the badge of the Audleys, followed by the famous Lord Audley himself,
with the four valiant squires, Dutton of Dutton, Delves of Doddington,
Fowlehurst of Crewe, and Hawkestone of Wainehill, who had all won such
glory at Poictiers. Two hundred heavily-armed cavalry rode behind the
Audley standard, while close at their heels came the Duke of Lancaster
with a glittering train, heralds tabarded with the royal arms riding
three deep upon cream-colored chargers in front of him. On either side
of the young prince rode the two seneschals of Aquitaine, Sir Guiscard
d'Angle and Sir Stephen Cossington, the one bearing the banner of the
province and the other that of Saint George. Away behind him as far as
eye could reach rolled the far-stretching, unbroken river of steel--rank
after rank and column after column, with waving of plumes, glitter of
arms, tossing of guidons, and flash and flutter of countless armorial
devices. All day Alleyne looked down upon the changing scene, and all
day the old bowman stood by his elbow, pointing out the crests of famous
warriors and the arms of noble houses. Here were the gold mullets of the
Pakingtons, the sable and ermine of the Mackworths, the scarlet bars of
the Wakes, the gold and blue of the Grosvenors, the cinque-foils of
the Cliftons, the annulets of the Musgraves, the silver pinions of the
Beauchamps, the crosses of the Molineaux, the bloody chevron of the
Woodhouses, the red and silver of the Worsleys, the swords of the
Clarks, the boars'-heads of the Lucies, the crescents of the Boyntons,
and the wolf and dagger of the Lipscombs. So through the sunny winter
day the chivalry of England poured down through the dark pass of
Roncesvalles to the plains of