ay thickest piled, a faint voice calling upon God for
pardon; and, suddenly, it was answered by a tone of fiercer agony,--that
did not pray, but curse.

By a common impulse, the gentle wanderers moved silently to the spot.

The sufferer in prayer was a youth scarcely passed from boyhood: his
helm had been cloven, his head was bare, and his long light hair,
clotted with gore, fell over his shoulders. Beside him lay a
strong-built, powerful form, which writhed in torture, pierced under
the arm by a Yorkist arrow, and the shaft still projecting from the
wound,--and the man's curse answered the boy's prayer.

"Peace to thy parting soul, brother!" said Warner, bending over the man.

"Poor sufferer!" said Sibyll to the boy; "cheer thee, we will send
succour; thou mayest live yet!"

"Water! water!--hell and torture!--water, I say!" groaned the man; "one
drop of water!"

It was the captain of the maurauders who had captured the wanderers.

"Thine arm! lift me! move me! That evil man scares my soul from heaven!"
gasped the boy.

And Adam preached penitence to the one that cursed, and Sibyll knelt
down and prayed with the one that prayed. And up rose the moon!

Lord Hastings sat with his victorious captains--over mead, morat, and
wine--in the humble hall of the farm.

"So," said he, "we have crushed the last embers of the rebellion! This
Sir Geoffrey Gates is a restless and resolute spirit; pity he escapes
again for further mischief. But the House of Nevile, that overshadowed
the rising race, hath fallen at last,--a waisall, brave sirs, to the new
men!"

The door was thrown open, and an old soldier entered abruptly.

"My lord! my lord! Oh, my poor son! he cannot be found! The women, who
ever follow the march of soldiers, will be on the ground to despatch the
wounded, that they may rifle the corpses! O God! if my son, my boy, my
only son--"

"I wist not, my brave Mervil, that thou hadst a son in our bands; yet I
know each man by name and sight. Courage! Our wounded have been removed,
and sentries are placed to guard the field."

"Sentries! O my lord, knowest thou not that they wink at the crime that
plunders the dead? Moreover, these corpse-riflers creep stealthily and
unseen, as the red earth-worms, to the carcass. Give me some few of thy
men, give me warrant to search the field! My son, my boy--not sixteen
summers--and his mother!"

The man stopped, and sobbed.

"Willingly!" said the gentle Hastings, "willing