"There," quoth John, pointing to one of the female captives who came running across the quadrangle of the castle with the little Alice in her arms. "She is there, the true and worthy child of her gentle and martyred mother, and may she long live to make compensation to the world for the many cruelties and crimes of her unnatural father;" and as he spake John threw far from him into a dark corner the bleeding head of the Wolf, lest Alice should be scared by the sight thereof. The dear child was presently in the arms of the good Lord of Caversham; and though she had not seen his face for eighteen long months, and though she had not quite recovered from her great terror on being startled from her sleep by the clashing of arms and those shrieks and yells, she soon knew Sir Alain, and clung round his neck with many a fond kiss, and with many a fond inquiry after her own dear mother the Ladie Alfgiva and her companion and champion Arthur, whom she had left in sad case at Oxenford. The first thing we did within the castle was to secure our prisoners with the chains which Sir Ingelric's unhappy captives had been wearing, and to hurl them into that horrible and feculent prison where so many good and peaceful men had long been rotting. Next we gave food to some of the released captives who had been so tortured by fast that their bones were cutting through their skin. And then we did all assemble in the great hall with a great glare of torches and tapers, and the lord abbat and Sir Alain being seated on the dais at the head of the hall in the massy chairs in which Sir Ingelric and his dame had been wont to sit in the days of their pride and evil power, that dark ladie was summoned from her uneasy bower to that august presence. A dark dame was she, and fierce as an untamed she-wolf as she came into the hall, screaming that the empress-queen and her husband Sir Ingelric would know how to avenge the traitorous deeds of this night, and the foul surprisal of a loyal castle. These her words, and others that were more vituperative, chafed our good lord abbat, and with a solemn and severe countenance he said unto her, "Peace, woman! peace! these be not words to be heard by the company here assembled, who be all true men and faithful lieges to King Stephen. Most fit mate for a bloodthirsty and ungodly lord who hath changed his party as men change their coats, who hath never had in view ought else than his own interest, and who for these eighteen months last past hath stopped at no crime whereby he might enrich himself; dost call it loyalty to the queen or countess to turn thy castle into a den of robbers and torturers, to waste the country round about it until it looks like unto a Golgotha,--to seize, rob, imprison, and torment all manner of men, as well the secret partisans of Matilda as the open partisans of King Stephen, as well the poor and lowly as the rich and great, and as well the quiet franklins and toiling serfs, who be of no