de of Pommers'
saddle.

"Nay, weep not, my pretty one," said he. "It brings the tears to my own
eyes to see them stream from thine."

"Alas! good archer, he was the best of fathers, so gentle and so kind!
Had you but known him, you must have loved him."

"Tut, tut! he will suffer no scathe. Squire Nigel will bring him back to
you anon."

"No, no, I shall never see him more. Hold me, archer, or I fall!"

Aylward pressed his ready arm round the supple waist. The fainting woman
leaned with her hand upon his shoulder. Her pale face looked past
him, and it was some new light in her eyes, a flash of expectancy, of
triumph, of wicked joy, which gave him sudden warning of his danger.

He shook her off and sprang to one side, but only just in time to avoid
a crashing blow from a great club in the hands of a man even taller
and stronger than himself. He had one quick vision of great white teeth
clenched in grim ferocity, a wild flying beard and blazing wild-beast
eyes. The next instant he had closed, ducking his head beneath another
swing of that murderous cudgel.

With his arms round the robber's burly body and his face buried in his
bushy beard, Aylward gasped and strained and heaved. Back and forward
in the dusty road the two men stamped and staggered, a grim
wrestling-match, with life for the prize. Twice the great strength of
the outlaw had Aylward nearly down, and twice with his greater youth
and skill the archer restored his grip and his balance. Then at last
his turn came. He slipped his leg behind the other's knee, and, giving
a mighty wrench, tore him across it. With a hoarse shout the outlaw
toppled backward and had hardly reached the ground before Aylward
had his knee upon his chest and his short sword deep in his beard and
pointed to his throat.

"By these ten finger-bones!" he gasped, "one more struggle and it is
your last!"

The man lay still enough, for he was half-stunned by the crashing fall.
Aylward looked round him, but the woman had disappeared. At the first
blow struck she had vanished into the forest. He began to have fears for
his master, thinking that he perhaps had been lured into some deathtrap;
but his forebodings were soon at rest, for Nigel himself came hastening
down the road, which he had struck some distance from the spot where he
left it.

"By Saint Paul!" he cried, "who is this man on whom you are perched, and
where is the lady who has honored us so far as to crave our help? Alas,