e toward which they were riding. A second long-drawn note
from a distance answered it.

"It is your camp," said the Frenchman.

"Nay," said Nigel; "we have pipes with us and a naker or two, but I have
heard no trumpet-call from our ranks. It behooves us to take heed, for
we know not what may be before us. Ride this way, I pray you, that we
may look over and yet be ourselves unseen."

Some scattered boulders crowned the height, and from behind them the two
young Squires could see the long rocky valley beyond. Upon a knoll was a
small square building with a battlement round it. Some distance from it
towered a great dark castle, as massive as the rocks on which it stood,
with one strong keep at the corner, and four long lines of machicolated
walls. Above, a great banner flew proudly in the wind, with some device
which glowed red in the setting sun. Nigel shaded his eyes and stared
with wrinkled brow.

"It is not the arms of England, nor yet the lilies of France, nor is it
the ermine of Brittany," said he. "He who holds this castle fights for
his own hand, since his own device flies above it. Surely it is a head
gules on an argent field."

"The bloody head on a silver tray!" cried the Frenchman. "Was I not
warned against him? This is not a man, friend Nigel. It is a monster who
wars upon English, French and all Christendom. Have you not heard of the
Butcher of La Brohiniere?"

"Nay, I have not heard of him."

"His name is accursed in France. Have I not been told also that he
put to death this very year Gilles de St. Pol, a friend of the English
King?"

"Yes, in very truth it comes back to my mind now that I heard something
of this matter in Calais before we started."

"Then there he dwells, and God guard you if ever you pass under yonder
portal, for no prisoner has ever come forth alive! Since these wars
began he hath been a king to himself, and the plunder of eleven years
lies in yonder cellars. How can justice come to him, when no man knows
who owns the land? But when we have packed you all back to your island,
by the Blessed Mother of God, we have a heavy debt to pay to the man who
dwells in yonder pile!"

But even as they watched, the trumpet-call burst forth once more. It
came not from the castle but from the farther end of the valley. It was
answered by a second call from the walls. Then in a long, straggling
line there came a wild troop of marauders streaming homeward from some
foray. In the van, at the