edict passed word for bows to be strung and every eye and every
ear to be strained right needfully; then moved they on again.

Betimes they reached the outskirts of the town, for defences it had
none, but no man moved therein and no sound reached them but the noise
of their own going. Thus, in a while, with hands tight-clenched and
lips firm-set they rode into the desolation of the market-place
befouled by signs of battle fierce and fell, while beyond, a mass of
charred ruin, lay all that was left of Winisfarne's once great and
famous keep.

Now above this ruin divers gibbets had been set up, and behold! these
gibbets each bore a heavy burden. Then Beltane lighted from his horse,
and going apart, laid by his casque and sat him down, his head bowed
betwixt his hands as one that is direly sick. In a while as he sat
thus, heedless of all things, cometh Roger.

"Master," said he, "saw ye the gibbets yonder?"

"I saw them, Roger."

"Upon those gibbets be divers of our good fellows, master. There is
Diccon and Peter of my company of pikes, and Gregory that was a fair
good bowman, and there be others also--and master, these be not hanged
men!"

"Not hanged--?"

"No, master! All these our men died in battle, as their wounds do
testify--they were dead men already when Pertolepe hanged them on his
gibbets. And Walkyn is not here, wherefore, methinks, he liveth yet.
And Pertolepe is not here, yet where Pertolepe is, there shall we
surely find Walkyn, for Walkyn hath sworn full oft--ha! master--
master, behold what cometh here--see, yonder!"

Then Beltane arose, and looking where Roger pointed, beheld a strange,
misshapen thing, half beast, half man, that ran wondrous fleetly
towards them, and, as it ran, flourished aloft a broken sword; now was
he lost to sight behind some bush or quick-set, now he bounded high
over stream or stone or fallen tree--nought was there could let or stay
him--until he came where stood Sir Benedict's outposts, to whose
conduct he yielded him forthwith and so was presently brought into the
market-square.

A wild figure this, great and hairy of head and with the arms and
shoulders of a very giant; bedight was he in good link-mail, yet foul
with dirt and mire and spattered with blood from heel to head, and in
one great hand he griped still the fragment of a reddened sword. All
a-sweat was he, and bleeding from the hair, while his mighty chest
heaved and laboured with his running.

So stood he