pener, and the sun shone and
the grass grew for a little space. So came we unto where the thicket
ended suddenly, and there was a long glade of the wild-wood, all set
about with great oak-trees and grass thereunder, which I knew well; and
thereof the tale tells that it was a holy place of the folk who abided in
these parts before the Sons of the Goths. Now will I drink."

So he drank of the horn and said: "It seemeth that Fox had a deeming of
the way the Romans should come; so now we abided in the thicket without
that glade and lay quiet and hidden, spreading ourselves as much about
that lawn of the oak-trees as we might, the while Fox and three others
crept through the wood to espy what might be toward: not long had they
been gone ere we heard a war-horn blow, and it was none of our horns: it
was a long way off, but we looked to our weapons: for men are eager for
the foe and the death that cometh, when they lie hidden in the thicket. A
while passed, and again we heard the horn, and it was nigher and had a
marvellous voice; then in a while was a little noise of men, not their
voices, but footsteps going warily through the brake to the south, and
twelve men came slowly and warily into that oak-lawn, and lo, one of them
was Fox; but he was clad in the raiment of the dastard of the Goths whom
he had slain. I tell you my heart beat, for I saw that the others were
Roman men, and one of them seemed to be a man of authority, and he held
Fox by the shoulder, and pointed to the thicket where we lay, and
something he said to him, as we saw by his gesture and face, but his
voice we heard not, for he spake soft.

"Then of those ten men of his he sent back two, and Fox going between
them, as though he should be slain if he misled them; and he and the
eight abided there wisely and warily, standing silently some six feet
from each other, moving scarce at all, but looking like images fashioned
of brown copper and iron; holding their casting-spears (which be
marvellous heavy weapons) and girt with the sax.

"As they stood there, not out of earshot of a man speaking in his wonted
voice, our War-duke made a sign to those about him, and we spread very
quietly to the right hand and the left of him once more, and we drew as
close as might be to the thicket's edge, and those who had bows the
nighest thereto. Thus then we abided a while again; and again came the
horn's voice; for belike they had no mind to come their ways covertly
becau