is men. Look,
there he is--up yonder by that hole."

"What do they mean, then?" cried Mark, dropping the point of his weapon.

"Mischief to us," cried Ralph.

"Or me," said Mark suspiciously.

"To us, I tell you," cried Ralph.--"You won't give in?"

"No; will you?"

"Not if you'll stand by me."

"And I will," cried Mark excitedly.

"But you are wounded."

"So are you."

"I don't feel it now."

"No more do I. Hurrah, then; let them come on!"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

FIGHTING LONG ODDS.

But the men did not come on, and the two lads, now breathing hard from
their exertions, had time to think as well as recover their breath, for
the men, after carefully approaching singly from different directions,
so as to surround the combatants, now halted as if by one consent a good
fifty yards away, each looking upward from time to time at the burly
cloaked figure high above them, and now standing upon a big block of
stone, making signals by waving his arms and pointing.

In answer to one of these signals, the men all took off the long cloaks
they wore; and in a moment the thought flashed through Mark Eden's brain
that these men must have been seen seated round their fire, somewhere
above, and hence had arisen the rumours of witches on the mountain
slope, the cloaks being their long gowns.

And now, as the men stood fast, in spite of several signs from above,
Ralph suddenly said:

"Perhaps they've only come to see us fight, and are waiting for us to
begin again."

"Not they," cried Mark excitedly. "I know: they mean to take us
prisoners, and keep us till we're ransomed."

"Perhaps. That is why we have heard of so many robberies," said Ralph,
whose hot anger against his enemy was fast cooling down.

"Yes, that's it. The dogs!" cried Mark. "I know there's a big cave up
there that you go in through a narrow crack. I saw it once. They
couldn't get my father to have them up at the Tor, and so they've taken
possession of the cavern and turned robbers. Well, my father will soon
rout them out of there."

"If yours don't, mine will," replied Ralph. "But they don't seem
disposed to interfere. Are they stopping to see us fight?"

"If they are," cried Mark hotly, "they'll have to wait a long time. I'm
not going to make a raree-show of myself to please them."

"Nor I neither," cried Ralph. "But," he added hastily, "you know I'm
not afraid?"

"Say you know that I'm not afraid either, and I'll say the sam