looks."

The young King's face was suffused with bitterness. "Good fortune!" he
cried sharply. "Good fortune! Am I a fool or a coward that I am never to
win except by craft or good fortune? Had you let me alone--" His voice
broke, so bitter was his disappointment.

His foster-father regarded him from under lowered lids.

"Would you have won without them to-day?" he inquired.

"Yes!" Canute cried savagely, "had you given me time. Yes!"

But what else he answered, Randalin never knew. Some unseen obstacle
turned in their direction the stream of rushing horsemen. In an instant
the torrent had caught them in its whirling eddies, and they were so
many separate atoms borne along on the flood. To hold back was to
be thrown down; to fall was to be trampled into rags. The battle had
changed into a hunt.

Thundering hoof-beats, crashing blows, shrieks and groans and falling
bodies,--a sense of being caught in a wolf pack took possession of the
girl; and the feeling grew with every sidelong glance she had of the
savage sweating dust-grimed faces, in their jungles of blood-clotted
hair. The battle-madness was upon them, and they were no longer men,
but beasts of prey. Amid the chaos of her mind, a new idea shaped itself
like a new world. If she could but work her way to the edge of the herd,
she might escape down one of those green aisles opening before them. If
she only could! Every fibre in her became intent upon it.

A little opening showed on her right. Though she could not see the
ground before her, she took the risk and swung her horse into the
breach. His forefeet came down upon the body of a fallen man, but it was
too late to draw back. Gripping her lip in her teeth, she spurred him
on. The man turned over with a yell, and used his one unbroken arm to
thrust upward his broken sword. The blade cut her leg to the bone, and
she shrieked with the pain; but her startled horse had no thought of
stopping. Making his way with plunges and leaps, he carried her out of
the press sooner than she could have guided him out. Once on the edge,
he broke into a run. The agony of the shaken wound was unbearable.
Shrieking and moaning, she twisted her hands in the lines and tried to
stop him. But her strength was ebbing from her with her blood. By and by
she dropped the rein altogether and clung to the saddle-bow.

They reached the woods at last, cool and sweet and hushed in holy peace.
The frantic horse plunged into one of the archin