ell do I know ye to be staunch and
trusty; yet to-day am I minded to speak with him men call Pertolepe the
Red, lest he shed innocent blood for that we slew his foresters--"

"Twenty lusty fellows!" nodded Giles, with a morsel of venison on his
dagger point.

"Nay, there one escaped!" quoth Roger.

"Yet he sore wounded!" said Walkyn.

"Ha! Sir Pertolepe is a terrible lord!" quoth Giles, eyeing the morsel
of venison somewhat askance. "'Twill be a desperate adventure,
methinks--and we but four."

"Yet each and all--gods!" quoth Walkyn, reaching for his axe.

"Aye," nodded Giles, frowning at the piece of venison, "yet are we but
four gods."

"Not so," answered Beltane, "for in this thing shall we be but one. Go
you three to Bourne, for I am minded to try this adventure alone."

"Alone, master!" cried Black Roger, starting to his feet.

"Alone!" growled Walkyn, clutching his axe.

"An death must come, better one should die than four," said Beltane,
"howbeit I am minded to seek out Pertolepe this day."

"Then do I come also, master, since thy man am I."

"I, too," nodded Walkyn, "come death and welcome, so I but stand face
to face with Pertolepe."

"Alack!" sighed Giles, "so needs must I come also, since I have twelve
shafts yet unsped," and he swallowed the morsel of venison with mighty
relish and gusto.

Then laughed Beltane for very gladness, and he looked on each with
kindling eye.

"Good friends," quoth he, "as ye say, so let it be, and may God's hand
be over us this day."

Now, as he spake with eyes uplift to heaven, he espied a faint, blue
mist far away above the soft-stirring tree tops--a distant haze, that
rose lazily into the balmy air, thickening ever as he watched.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, fierce-eyed of a sudden and pointing with rigid
finger, "whence cometh that smoke, think ye?"

"Why," quoth Roger, frowning, "Wendonmere village lieth yonder!"

"Nay, 'tis nearer than Wendonmere," said Walkyn, shouldering his axe.

"See, the smoke thickens!" cried Beltane. "Now, God forgive me! the
while I tarry here Red Pertolepe is busy, meseemeth!" So saying, he
caught up his sword, and incontinent set off at speed toward where the
soft blue haze stole upon the air of morning, growing denser and ever
denser.

Fast and furious Beltane sped on, crashing through underbrush and
crackling thicket, o'erleaping bush and brook and fallen tree, heedful
of eye, and choosing his course with a forester's unerring