ght at
sunset he dieth by slow fire as a warning to--Ah! sweet, noble, good my
lord, what--what would ye--" for Beltane had risen and was looking down
at the crouching Pardoner, suddenly haggard, pallid-lipped, and with
eyes a-glare with awful menace; but now the Pardoner saw that those
eyes looked through him and beyond--living eyes in a face of death.

"Messire--messire!" quavered the Pardoner on trembling knees; but
Beltane, as one that is deaf and blind, strode forward and over him,
and as he went set his bugle to his lips and sounded a rallying note.
Forthwith came men that ran towards him at speed, but now was there no
outcry or confusion and their mail gleamed in the early sun as they
fell into their appointed rank and company.

Then Beltane set his hands unto his eyes and thereafter stared up to
the heavens and round about upon the fair earth as one that wakes from
a dream evil and hateful, and spake, sudden and harsh-voiced:

"Now hither to me Walkyn, Giles and Roger. Ye do remember how upon a
time we met a white friar in the green that was a son of God--they call
him Brother Martin? Ye do remember brave Friar Martin?"

"Aye, lord, we mind him!" quoth the three.

"Ye will remember how that we did, within the green, aid him to bury a
dead maid, young and fair and tender--yet done to shameful death?"

"Verily master--a noble lady!" growled Walkyn.

"And very young!" said Roger.

"And very comely, alas!" added Giles.

"So now do I tell thee that, as she died--snatched out of life by
brutal hands--so, at this hour, even as we stand idle here, other maids
do suffer and die within Belsaye town. To-day, as we stand here, good
Friar Martin lieth within the noisome water-dungeons where rats do
frolic--"

"Ha! the pale fox!" growled Walkyn. "Bloody Gui of Allerdale that I do
live but to slay one day with Pertolepe the Red--"

"Thou dost remember, Roger, how, within the Keep at Belsaye I sware an
oath unto Sir Gui? So now--this very hour--must we march on Belsaye
that this my oath may be kept." But here a murmur arose that hummed
from rank to rank; heads were shaken and gruff voices spake on this
wise:

"Belsaye? 'Tis a long day's march to Belsaye--"

"'Tis a very strong city--very strongly guarded--"

"And we muster scarce two hundred--"

"The walls be high and we have no ladders, or engines for battery and
storm--"

"Forsooth, and we have here much booty already--"

"Ha--booty!" cried Beltane, "the