more. Then all was
blank, until he woke to find kindly blue English eyes peering down upon
him and to hear the blessed sound of his country's speech. They were but
a foraging party--a hundred archers and as many men-at-arms--but their
leader was Sir Hugh Calverley, and he was not a man to bide idle when
good blows were to be had not three leagues from him. A scout was sent
flying with a message to the camp, and Sir Hugh, with his two hundred
men, thundered off to the rescue. With them went Alleyne, still bound to
his saddle, still dripping with blood, and swooning and recovering, and
swooning once again. On they rode, and on, until, at last, topping a
ridge, they looked down upon the fateful valley. Alas! and alas! for the
sight that met their eyes.

There, beneath them, was the blood-bathed hill, and from the highest
pinnacle there flaunted the yellow and white banner with the lions and
the towers of the royal house of Castile. Up the long slope rushed ranks
and ranks of men exultant, shouting, with waving pennons and brandished
arms. Over the whole summit were dense throngs of knights, with no enemy
that could be seen to face them, save only that at one corner of the
plateau an eddy and swirl amid the crowded mass seemed to show that all
resistance was not yet at an end. At the sight a deep groan of rage and
of despair went up from the baffled rescuers, and, spurring on their
horses, they clattered down the long and winding path which led to the
valley beneath.

But they were too late to avenge, as they had been too late to save.
Long ere they could gain the level ground, the Spaniards, seeing them
riding swiftly amid the rocks, and being ignorant of their numbers, drew
off from the captured hill, and, having secured their few prisoners,
rode slowly in a long column, with drum-beating and cymbal-clashing, out
of the valley. Their rear ranks were already passing out of sight ere
the new-comers were urging their panting, foaming horses up the slope
which had been the scene of that long drawn and bloody fight.

And a fearsome sight it was that met their eyes! Across the lower end
lay the dense heap of men and horses where the first arrow-storm had
burst. Above, the bodies of the dead and the dying--French, Spanish, and
Aragonese--lay thick and thicker, until they covered the whole ground
two and three deep in one dreadful tangle of slaughter. Above them lay
the Englishmen in their lines, even as they had stood, and hig