oom below.

"The holy angels have thee in their keeping, lord and master!" he
sighed, and so turned with head a-droop and was gone. And now Beltane
began to clamber out across the swirl of dark waters, while the tough
bough swung and swayed beneath him in every gust of wind, wherefore his
going was difficult and slow, and he took heed only to his hands and
feet.

But, all at once, he heard a bitter, broken cry, and glancing up, it
chanced that from his lofty perch he could look within the lighted
window, and thus beheld a nun, whose slender, black-robed body writhed
and twisted in the clasp of two leathern-clad arms; vicious arms, that
bent her back and back across the rough table, until into Beltane's
vision came the leathern-clad form of him that held her: a black-haired,
shapely man, whose glowing eyes and eager mouth stooped ever nearer
above the nun's white loveliness.

And thus it was that my Beltane first looked upon Sir Gilles of
Brandonmere. He had laid sword and armour by, but as the nun yet
struggled in his arms, her white hand came upon and drew the dagger at
his girdle, yet, ere she could strike, Sir Gilles had seen and leapt
back out of reach.

Then Beltane clambered on at speed, and with every yard their voices
grew more loud--hers proud and disdainful, his low and soft, pierced,
now and then, by an evil, lazy laugh.

Now ever as Beltane went, the branch swayed more dizzily, bending more
and more beneath his weight, and ever as he drew nearer, between the
wind-gusts came snatches of their talk.

"Be thou nun, or duchess, or strolling light-o'-love, art woman--by
Venus! fair and passing fair!--captive art thou--aye, mine, I tell
thee--yield thee--hast struggled long enough to save thy modesty--yield
thee now, else will I throw thee to my lusty rogues without--make them
sport--"

"O--beast--I fear thee not! For thy men--how shall they harm me, seeing
I shall be dead!"

Down swayed the branch, low and lower, until Beltane's mailed foot,
a-swing in mid air, found something beneath--slipped away--found it
again, and thereupon, loosing the branch, down he came upon the ruined
mill-wheel. Then, standing upon the wheel, his groping fingers found
divers cracks in the worn masonry--moreover the ivy was thick; so,
clinging with fingers and toes, up he went, higher and higher until his
steel-mittened hands gripped the sill: thus, slowly and cautiously he
drew himself up until his golden head rose above the