.

THE FIGHT WITH TWO.
Now whither I went for the next two hours I cannot tell, for my mind was heedless of time or place or direction--only full of burning hate of all men, and of Matelgar most of all.

And though that has long passed away from me, so that I may even think of him now as the pleasant comrade in field and feast that he once was, I wonder not at all I then felt; for this treachery had come on me so unawares, and was so deep.
Wherever it was I wandered it took me away from men, and at last, when I roused myself to a knowledge again of the land round me, I was hard on the borders of Sedgemoor Waste; and the sun was low down, and near setting.
Perhaps I had not roused even then; but it came into my mind that I was followed, and that for some time past I had heard, as in a dream, the noise of footsteps not far behind me.

Now, since I was in the glade of a little wood, a snapping stick broke the dream, and I started and turned.
Where I stood was in the shadow, but twenty paces from me a red, level sunbeam came past the tree trunks, and made a bright patch of light on the new growing grass beneath the half-clad branches.

And, even as I turned, into that patch of light came two of Matelgar's men, walking swiftly, as if here at last they would overtake me.