time, and set out his foot, and the man
fell headlong over it. His head struck the doorpost with a great
thud, and there he lay motionless, while something flew from his
hand across the floor, rattling as it went. It was the hilt of a
knife of some sort.

Erling shut the outer door in haste, and then helped me to rise,
asking me if I were hurt.

"No," I answered. "Ho, but what is that?"

Out of my tunic as I straightened myself there fell a gleaming
blade, and I picked it up. It was half of a Welsh knife, keen and
pointed, which had broken on my mail shirt, leaving only a long
slit in my tunic, and maybe a black bruise to come presently on the
skin where the dint fell.

"I owe life to you, Erling," I said. "And I laughed at the thought
of wearing the mail, and well-nigh did not put it on. But he smote
you; has he harmed you?"

"The mail saved me also," he said, "for the knife broke on it;
otherwise--No, master, I am not hurt; not so much as a cut tunic. I
wonder if there are more of this sort in these dens?"

I drew my sword, and we looked cautiously into the chamber, and
then into Sighard's, but there was no one there. This man had been
alone, and he had fared badly. He lay yet as he had fallen,
breathing heavily.

"This means that Quendritha is after us," said Erling. "Our old saw
is true enough when it says, 'Look to the door or ever you pass
it;' and that we shall have to do for a while. Now I have a mind to
tie this man up for a day or two; we have a spare chamber for him."

"Do so," I said. "Then we will pass out through the church, and
Quendritha will think that he waits us here yet, and we shall be
the safer."

So we bound him and set him, still senseless, in the empty chamber
of Sighard, making fast the door with the broken dagger so that,
even if presently the man worked his bonds loose, he could not get
to Quendritha to say that he had failed. Then I made Erling don a
buff coat of Sighard's, good enough to turn most blows. He might
need it if this went on.

"It is in my mind," said I when this was done, "that a crowd is the
safest place for us just now. Let us go and see how matters fare at
the stables. It is time that the horses came back from the water."

We passed through the church and went stable-wards, among all the
idle and half-terrified thralls and servants; and when we came to
the long stables with their scores of stalls, there was talk and
wonderment enough among the grooms. Gymbert