His pale eyes contemplated the figures--the wounded man, now faint again with pain and half-fallen on the litter of branches; his deliverer, tall and grim, but with laughing face; the two murderers cringing in their fear; in a corner the huddled body of the man from the south half hidden by the shield.

"Speak, fellow," and he addressed the soldier.

"What work has been toward?
Have you not had your bellyfull of battles that you must scrabble like rats in this hovel?
What are you called, and whence come you ?" The soldier lifted his brow, looked his questioner full in the face, and, as if liking what he found there, bowed his head in respect.

The huge man had the air of one to be obeyed.
"I am of the Duke's army," he said, "and was sent on to reconnoitre the forest roads I stumbled on this hut and found four men about to slay a wounded English.

One lies outside where I flung him, another is there with a cracked skull, and you have before you the remnant." The knight seemed to consider.