ford, and they
dotted the white road beyond, grim signs of Sir Benedict's stubborn
retreat. Hereupon Beltane halted his hard-breathing foresters and
bidding them rest awhile and break their fast, hasted down into the
roadway with Walkyn and Cnut and Black Roger.

"Aha!" cried Walkyn, pointing to divers of the slain that hampered
their going, "these be Pertolepe's rogues--"

"Aye," quoth Roger, throwing back his mail-coif, "and yonder lie four,
five--six of Sir Benedict's good fellows! It hath been a dour fight
hereabouts--they have fought every yard of the way!"

"Forsooth," nodded Cnut, "Sir Benedict is ever most fierce when he
retreats, look you." A while stood Beltane in that dark defile, the
which, untouched as jet by the sun's level beams, struck dank and
chill, a place of gloom and awful silence--so stood he, glancing from
one still form to another, twice he knelt to look more closely on the
dead and each time he rose thereafter, his brow was blacker and he
shivered, despite his mantle.

"'Tis strange," said he, "and passing strange that they should all lie
dead--not a living man among them! How think you Roger?"

"I think, lord, others have been here afore us. See you this knight
now, his gorget loosed off--"

"O messire!" said a faint voice hard by, "if ye have any pity save me
from the crone--for the love of Christ let not the hag slay me as she
hath so many--save me!"

Starting round, Beltane espied a pale face that glared up at him from a
thick furze-bush beside the way, a youthful face albeit haggard and
drawn.

"Fear not!" said Beltane, kneeling beside the wounded youth, "thy life
is safe from us. But what mean you by talk of hag and crone?"

"Ah, messire, to-day, ere the dawn, we fell upon Sir Benedict of
Bourne--a seditious lord who hath long withstood Duke Ivo. But though
his men were few they fought hard and gained the ford ahead of us. And
in the fight I, with many others as ye see, was smitten down and the
fight rolled on and left us here in the dust. As I lay, striving to
tend my hurt and hearkening to the sighs and groans of the stricken, I
heard a scream, and looking about, beheld an ancient woman--busied with
her knife--slaying--slaying and robbing the dead--ah, behold her--with
the black-haired archer--yonder!"

And verily Roger stepped forth of the underwood that clothed the steep,
dragging a thing of rags and tatters, a wretched creature, bent and
wrinkled, that mopped and mowed wi