, we are like to
be taken, both of us, by a fresh foe."

"Hawksley is in the right," added the lord. "How please ye, sir? Whither
shall we march?"

"Nay, my lord," said Dick, "go where ye will for me. I do begin to
suspect we have some ground of friendship, and if, indeed, I began our
acquaintance somewhat ruggedly, I would not churlishly continue. Let us,
then, separate, my lord, you laying your right hand in mine; and at the
hour and place that ye shall name, let us encounter and agree."

"Y'are too trustful, boy," said the other; "but this time your trust is
not misplaced. I will meet you at the point of day at St. Bride's Cross.
Come, lads, follow!"

The strangers disappeared from the scene with a rapidity that seemed
suspicious; and while the outlaws fell to the congenial task of rifling
the dead bodies, Dick made once more the circuit of the garden wall to
examine the front of the house. In a little upper loophole of the roof
he beheld a light set; and as it would certainly be visible in town from
the back windows of Sir Daniel's mansion, he doubted not that this was
the signal feared by Hawksley, and that ere long the lances of the
Knight of Tunstall would arrive upon the scene.

He put his ear to the ground, and it seemed to him as if he heard a
jarring and hollow noise from townward. Back to the beach he went
hurrying. But the work was already done; the last body was disarmed and
stripped to the skin, and four fellows were already wading seaward to
commit it to the mercies of the deep.

A few minutes later, when there debouched out of the nearest lanes of
Shoreby some two-score horsemen, hastily arrayed and moving at the
gallop of their steeds, the neighbourhood of the house beside the sea
was entirely silent and deserted.

Meanwhile, Dick and his men had returned to the alehouse of the Goat and
Bagpipes to snatch some hours of sleep before the morning tryst.

CHAPTER III

ST. BRIDE'S CROSS

St. Bride's Cross stood a little way back from Shoreby, on the skirts of
Tunstall Forest. Two roads met: one, from Holywood across the forest;
one, that road from Risingham down which we saw the wrecks of a
Lancastrian army fleeing in disorder. Here the two joined issue, and
went on together down the hill to Shoreby; and a little back from the
point of junction, the summit of a little knoll was crowned by the
ancient and weather-beaten cross.

Here, then, about seven in the morning, Dick arrived. It wa