Artevelde gave orders at once that twenty men of the company next to him should proceed as rapidly as they could ahead with the English knights, and should hold themselves under their command. "We will go on, good fellows," Edgar said to them; "if we meet with a force too strong for us we shall ride back, but if we can capture aught in the way of food we will wait until you come up and leave it in your charge to hold until the others arrive." Riding on fast the friends were soon two miles ahead of the main body. The villages on the road were found to be completely deserted, the people having removed weeks before; for lying, as they did, between the rival cities, they were likely to suffer at the hands of both. The party soon turned off and made across the country. Here and there a few animals could be seen over the flat expanse. Presently they came upon a mill; the water of the canal that turned its wheel was running to waste, and the place was evidently deserted. "Hew down the door, Hal," Edgar said to his follower. "That will I right willingly, my lord, for, in truth, I begin to feel well-nigh as hungry as those of Ghent. We have had good lodgings, and the beasts have fared well on hay, but had it not been for the food we brought from the last halting-place, verily I believe that we should not have had a bite from the time we entered the place five days ago to now." "We have been in almost as bad a plight, Hal. It was well indeed that we filled up our panniers, in the knowledge that there was little to be obtained in Ghent; though in truth we knew not that the pressure of want was so great." A few strokes with the heavy axe Hal carried at his saddlebow stove in the door, and they entered. The interior of the mill was in great confusion, and by the manner in which things were thrown about, it was evident that it had been deserted in great haste, and probably some months before, when the fighting was going on hotly. "Look round, lads!" Edgar exclaimed. "They may well have left something behind when they fled so suddenly."