yet I shall ride rapidly
back for a few miles and, perchance, it may be so. If I be not here by
daybreak, Sire, I will join the men en route."

"It will be a relief for you to be on the move," said Richard kindly;
"but return here for your escort. We may have clues then; and if the
Countess has been abducted, she is quite as likely to be carried South
as North."

"I shall be here at daybreak," Aymer answered. He saddled Selim with
his own hand, and with Dauvrey beside him hurried away. They rode in
silence with eyes alert, scanning sharply the ground on both sides of
the road that lay like a silver stream before them. A mile from the
castle a soldier rode out from the shadow and reined across the track,
his casquetel and drawn sword glistening in the moonlight.

"Hold!" he ordered.

"Yorkshire!" said De Lacy . . . "Any news?" he demanded, as they swept
by.

"None, my lord."

At the first cross-road two horsemen barred the way. Aymer paused to
question them, but learning nothing, the pace was resumed. Another
mile was passed, and they had tarried a moment to breathe and water the
horses at a rivulet that gurgled across the road, when Selim suddenly
threw up his head.

"Some one comes!" said De Lacy . . . "it is news . . . he rides
furiously; he must be stopped."

They drew out into the middle of the track and waited. Presently a
running horse shot into view ahead, and the rider, seeing the two in
front, shouted the royal messenger's call: "Way! In the King's name!
Way!"

"Stay, Allen," Giles Dauvrey cried, recognizing him. "What word?"

"Sir John has been found," the man answered, drawing up short.

"Dead?" Aymer demanded.

"No, my lord, not yet."

"And the Countess of Clare?"

"Gone, my lord; no trace."

"God in Heaven! . . . Where Is Sir John?"

"Half a league further on."

"Tell the King I have gone thither," Aymer called over his shoulder as
he raced away.

In a patch of moonlight, fifty feet or so in from the road, lay Sir
John de Bury, his eyes closed, his face upturned, motionless--to all
appearances a corpse. De Lacy sprang down and knelt beside him.

"He is not dead, my lord," said a soldier.

Aymer laid back the doublet and shirt, wet and heavy with blood that
had come from a deep wound in the right breast, and was still oozing
slowly. The heart was beating, but very faintly, and forcing the set
jaws apart with his dagger, he poured a measure of cordial down Sir
John's