pled grass a-swoon with weariness, but
in the eyes of each and every was the look of men that triumph.

Cnut was there, his bascinet gone, his fiery hair betousled: Tall Orson
was there, leaning on a bent and battered pike, and there his comrade,
Jenkyn o' the Ford, with many others that Beltane well remembered and
others whose faces he knew not. So formed they their battle-scarred
array what time Beltane viewed them with glowing eye and heart swelling
within him.

"Master!" cried Tall Orson of a sudden, "O master, us do be clean men
and goodly fighters as us did promise thee time 'gone i' the Hollow,
master, ye'll mind us as did promise so to be--I and Jenkyn as be my
comrade?"

"Aye, master!" cried Jenkyn o' the Ford, "aye, look'ee, we ha' kept our
word to thee as we did promise, look'ee master! So now, speak word to
us master, look'ee!"

"Ye men!" quoth Beltane, hoarse-voiced, "O my good comrades all, your
deeds this day shall speak when we are dust, methinks! Your foes this
day did muster three thousand strong, and ye do number scarce a
thousand--yet have ye scattered them, for that your cause is just--'tis
thus ye shall lift Pentavalon from shame and give to her peace at
last!"

Then Tall Orson shook aloft his battered pike and shouted amain, and on
the instant, others took up the cry--a hoarse roar that rolled from
rank to rank; lance and sword, axe and pike were flourished high in
air, and from these men who had marched so grimly silent all the day a
great and mighty shout went up:

"Arise, Pentavalon! Ha! Beltane--Pentavalon!" Now even as they shouted,
upon this thunderous roar there stole another sound, high and clear and
very sweet, that rose and swelled upon the air like the voices of
quiring angels; and of a sudden the shouting was hushed, as, forth of
the tower's gloomy portal the lady Abbess came, tall and fair and
saintly in her white habit, her nuns behind her, two and two, their
hands clasped, their eyes upraised to heaven, chanting to God a hymn of
praise and thanksgiving. Slow paced they thus, the stately Abbess with
head low-bended and slim hands clasped upon her silver crucifix until,
the chant being ended, she raised her head and beheld straightway Sir
Benedict unhelmed and yet astride his great charger. The silver
crucifix fell, the slim hands clasped themselves upon her bosom and the
eyes of the tall, white Abbess grew suddenly wide and dark: and even as
she gazed on him, so gazed Sir Ben