ary as ourselves. The hounds
trailed after us with bent heads, hardly rousing themselves to tug
at the long leash when a hare scudded from its form away from us,
for they had had their fill of sport by that time. And it grew near
sunset before we met with any trace of man. There was not even a
track across the wild upland which we could follow.

"We shall have to make a night out of it," said I at last.
"However, that will not matter. Here is game enough for us and to
spare."

"And no ale to wash it down withal," said Werbode and Erling in a
breath.

"Why, then, we will find the best water we can," I answered; and we
rode on our way looking for a clear pool.

And then the first sound which told us that any one was near came
to us.

There rose from off to our left, where a patch of woodland lay, a
cry that made each one of us rein in his horse and stare at the
others.

"That was some one in dire distress," said I.

"A woman crying for help," said Werbode.

Then we forgot our own plight, and set spurs to our horses and rode
toward the place whence the cry came. We heard it once more, and
that quickened us. My horse pricked up his ears, and broke into a
long stride that left the other two behind in a few minutes, as if
he knew that there was need for dire haste. I had to ride
carefully, too, for there were holes and great stones among the
heather.

So I was the first to see what was amiss; and it seemed bad enough.
Round the spur of the cover I came, and there before me I saw a
wild throng of men, savage as any I have ever seen in the mines of
our Mendips--bareheaded save for great shocks of black hair,
barefooted and hoseless, dressed in untanned hides of deer and
sheep, and armed with uncouth clubs and spears on rough ash poles.
They did not hear my coming, and they had their faces from me at
first. Twenty or more of them there were; and two horses rolled on
the ground hard by them, and they had been hamstrung, as one glance
told me. One man, too, in the dress of a housecarl, lay not far
off, wounded sorely. He saw me, and beckoned wildly to me. And next
I knew why, for out of the throng came three men dragging a lady
roughly away from the rest; and as their comrades parted to let
them pass, I saw another man on the ground, and with his back to a
third a gray-haired noble, who held back the wild men with long
sweeps of his sword. He was trying to follow those who held the
lady.

I saw all that at once, i