My horse pricked up his ears, and broke into a long stride that left the other two behind in a few minutes, as if he knew that there was need for dire haste.

I had to ride carefully, too, for there were holes and great stones among the heather.
So I was the first to see what was amiss; and it seemed bad enough.
Round the spur of the cover I came, and there before me I saw a wild throng of men, savage as any I have ever seen in the mines of our Mendips--bareheaded save for great shocks of black hair, barefooted and hoseless, dressed in untanned hides of deer and sheep, and armed with uncouth clubs and spears on rough ash poles.
They did not hear my coming, and they had their faces from me at first.

Twenty or more of them there were; and two horses rolled on the ground hard by them, and they had been hamstrung, as one glance told me.

One man, too, in the dress of a housecarl, lay not far off, wounded sorely.

He saw me, and beckoned wildly to me.