-mother--wilt thou--kiss me--once?"

So Beltane stooped and kissed her, and, when he laid her down, Jolette
the witch was dead.

Full long Beltane knelt, absorbed in prayer, and as he prayed, he wept.
So long knelt he thus, that at last cometh Roger, treading soft and
reverently, and touched him.

"Master!" he whispered.

Then Beltane arose as one that dreams and stood a while looking down
upon that pale and placid face, on whose silent lips the wondrous smile
still lingered. But of a sudden, Roger's fingers grasped his arm.

"Master!" he whispered again. Thereon Beltane turned and thus he saw
that Roger looked neither on him nor on the dead and that he pointed
with shaking finger. Now, glancing whither he pointed, Beltane beheld,
high on the bank above them, a mounted knight armed cap-a-pie, who
stared down at them through closed visor--a fierce and war-like figure
looming gigantic athwart the splendour of the sinking moon. And even as
they stared in wonder, a broad shield flashed, and knight and horse
were gone.

CHAPTER LIV

HOW BELTANE FOUGHT WITH A DOUGHTY STRANGER

"Lord!" quoth Roger, wiping sweat from him, "yonder certes was Hob-gob!
Forsooth ne'er saw I night the like o' this! How think ye of yon
devilish things? Here was it one moment, and lo! in the twinkle of an
eye it is not. How think ye, master?"

"I do think 'twas some roving knight."

"Nay but, lord--how shall honest flesh and blood go a-vanishing away
into thin air whiles a man but blinketh an eye?"

"The ground hath sudden slope thereabouts, belike."

"Nay, yonder was some arch-wizard, master--the Man o' the Oak, or
Hob-gob himself. Saint Cuthbert shield us, say I--yon was for sure a
spirit damned--"

"Hark! Do spirits go in steel, Roger?" said Beltane, stooping for his
sword; for indeed, plain and loud upon the prevailing quiet was the
ring and clash of heavy armour, what time from the bushes that clothed
the steep a tall figure strode, and the moon made a glory in polished
shield, it gleamed upon close-vizored helm, it flashed upon brassart,
vanbrace and plastron. Being come near, the grim and warlike figure
halted, and leaning gauntleted hand upon long shield, stood silent a
while seeming to stare on Beltane through the narrow slit of his great
casque. But even as he viewed Beltane, so stared Beltane on him, on the
fineness of his armour, chain and plate of the new fashion, on his
breadth of shoulder and length of limb--from