bold Englishmen, whose courage and resource
they attributed to help given to them by the powers of evil, seemed to
grow from day to day, even as the plague grew in the streets of that
sore-afflicted city. From their walls they could see friars preaching
a kind of crusade against them. They pointed toward the tower with
crucifixes, invoking their hearers to pull it stone from stone and slay
the wizards within, the wizards who had conspired with the accursed
Jews even beneath the eyes of his Holiness the Pope, to bring doom on
Avignon.

The eighth morn broke at length, and its first red rays discovered Hugh
and Dick kneeling side by side behind the battlements of the gateway.
Each of them was making petition to heaven in his own fashion for
forgiveness of his sins, since they were outworn and believed that this
day would be their last.

"What did you pray for, Dick?" asked Hugh, glancing at his companion's
fierce face, which in that half light looked deathlike and unearthly.

"What did I pray for? Well, for the first part let it be; that's betwixt
me and whatever Power sent me out to do its business on the earth. But
for the last--I'll tell you. It was that we may go hence with such a
guard of dead French as never yet escorted two Englishmen from Avignon
to heaven--or hell. Ay, and we will, master, for to-day, as they shouted
to us, they'll storm this tower; but if our strength holds out there's
many a one who'll never win its crest."

"Rather would I have died peacefully, Dick. Yet the blood of these
hounds will not weigh upon my soul, seeing that they seek to murder us
for no fault except that we saved a woman and two children from their
cruel devilries. Oh! could I but know that Red Eve and Sir Andrew were
safe away, I'd die a happy man."

"I think we shall know that and much more before to-morrow's dawn,
master, or never know anything again. Look! they gather yonder. Now let
us eat, for perhaps later we shall find no time."

The afternoon drew on toward evening and still these two lived. Of all
the hundreds of missiles which were shot or hurled at them, although a
few struck, not one of them had pierced their armour so as to do them
hurt. The walls and battlements or some good Fate had protected them.
Thrice had the French come on, and thrice they had retreated before
those arrows that could not miss, and as yet bridge and doors were safe.

"Look," said Dick as he set down a cup of wine that he had drained,