I should be right glad to have a prisoner, for it is my wish to know
something of this country-side, and these peasants can speak neither
French nor English. I would have you linger here in hiding when we go
forward. This man will still follow us. When he does so, yonder wood
will lie betwixt you and him. Do you ride round it and come upon him
from behind. There is broad plain upon his left, and we will cut him
off upon the right. If your horse be indeed the swifter, then you cannot
fail to take him."

Nigel had already sprung down and was tightening Pommers' girth.

"Nay, there is no need of haste, for you cannot start until we are
two miles upon our way. And above all I pray you, Nigel, none of your
knight-errant ways. It is this roan that I want, him and the news that
he can bring me. Think little of your own advancement and much of the
needs of the army. When you get him, ride westwards upon the sun, and
you cannot fail to find the road."

Nigel waited with Pommers under the shadow of the nunnery wall, horse
and man chafing with impatience, whilst above them six round-eyed
innocent nun-faces looked down on this strange and disturbing vision
from the outer world. At last the long column wound itself out of sight
round a curve of the road, and the white dot was gone from the bare
green flank of the hill. Nigel bowed his steel head to the nuns, gave
his bridle a shake, and bounded off upon his welcome mission. The
round-eyed sisters saw yellow horse and twinkling man sweep round the
skirt of the wood, caught a last glimmer of him through the tree-trunks,
and paced slowly back to their pruning and their planting, their minds
filled with the beauty and the terror of that outer world beyond the
high gray lichen-mottled wall.

Everything fell out even as Knolles had planned. As Nigel rounded the
oak forest, there upon the farther side of it, with only good greensward
between, was the rider upon the white horse. Already he was so near that
Nigel could see him clearly, a young cavalier, proud in his bearing,
clad in purple silk tunic with a red curling feather in his low black
cap. He wore no armor, but his sword gleamed at his side. He rode easily
and carelessly, as one who cares for no man, and his eyes were forever
fixed upon the English soldiers on the road. So intent was he upon them
that he gave no thought to his own safety, and it was only when the low
thunder of the great horse's hoofs broke upon his ears that h