d out directions, messages, and
benedictions in a breath. Ordering his carriage to follow presently, the
traveller rapidly climbed the steep road, guided by signs he could not
well mistake. The convent gate stood open, and he paused for no
permission to enter, for looking through it, down the green vista of an
orchard path, he saw his friend and sprang to meet him.

"Adam!"

"Geoffrey!"

"Truant that you are, to desert me for ten days, and only let me find
you when you have no need of me."

"I always need you, but am not always needed. I went away because the
old restlessness came upon me in that dead city Rome. You were happy
there, but I scented war, followed and found it by instinct, and have
had enough of it. Look at my hands."

He laughed as he showed them, still bruised and blackened with the hard
usage they had received; nothing else but a paler shade of color from
loss of blood, showed that he had passed through any suffering or
danger.

"Brave hands, I honor them for all their grime. Tell me about it, Adam;
show me the wound; describe the scene, I want to hear it in calm
English."

But Warwick was slow to do so being the hero of the tale, and very brief
was the reply Moor got.

"I came to watch, but found work ready for me. It is not clear to me
even now what I did, nor how I did it. One of my Berserker rages
possessed me I fancy; my nerves and muscles seemed made of steel and
gutta percha; the smell of powder intoxicated, and the sense of power
was grand. The fire, the smoke, the din were all delicious, and I felt
like a giant, as I wielded that great weapon, dealing many deaths with a
single pair of hands."

"The savage in you got the mastery just then; I've seen it, and have
often wondered how you managed to control it so well. Now it has had a
holiday and made a hero of you."

"The savage is better out than in, and any man may be a hero if he will.
What have you been doing since I left you poring over pictures in a
mouldy palace?"

"You think to slip away from the subject, do you? and after facing death
at a cannon's breach expect me to be satisfied with an ordinary
greeting? I won't have it; I insist upon asking as many questions as I
like, hearing about the wound and seeing if it is doing well. Where is
it?"

Warwick showed it, a little purple spot above his heart. Moor's face
grew anxious as he looked, but cleared again as he examined it, for the
ball had gone upward and the wholesome f