Without him to put backbone in them, they'll eat out of my hand.
Don't worry.

They--" "Here comes some of the folks, now," muttered Roke, as running figures began to appear from three sides.

"We'd be safer to--" His warning ended in a gurgle of dismay.
From three points the twenty-five or thirty new arrivals continued to run forward.

But, at a word from some one in front of them, they changed their direction, and wheeled in triple column, almost with the precision of soldiers.
The shift of direction brought them converging, not upon the tree, but upon the group of sailors that stood around Hade.
It was this odd change of course which had stricken Roke dumb.
And now he saw these oncomers were not farmhands or white-clad neighbors, and that there were no women among them.

They were men in dark clothes, they were stalwart of build and determined of aspect..