"Ho, there! Ho!" shouted Woodville again; and instantly he heard a horn answering from the wood. "The first man is mine, my lord," he cried, setting his lance in the rest and drawing down his visor. "Fall back upon our friends behind: you are unarmed!" and, spurring on his charger at full speed, he passed the King's messenger, (who was only habited in the garments of the chase,) towards a man-at-arms, who was coming at full speed some fifty yards in advance of the party sent to arrest the Duke. His adversary instantly charged his lance likewise; no explanation was needed; and the two cavaliers met in full shock between the parties. The spear of the Frenchman struck right on Woodville's cuirass, and broke it into splinters; but the lance-head of the young Englishman caught his opponent on the gorget, and, without wavering in his seat, he bore him back over the croup to the ground. Then, wheeling rapidly, he galloped back to the Duke's side; while, at a brisk pace, but in perfect order, his band came up under the young Lord of Lens; and the English archers, springing to the ground, put their arrows to the strings and drew the bows to the ear, waiting for the signal to let fly the unerring shaft. "Hold! hold!" cried the Duke. "Gallantly done, noble sir!--you have saved me; but let us not shed blood unnecessarily;" and, casting his eye over Woodville's troop, he added, "We outnumber them far; they will never dare attack us." As he spoke, the men-at-arms of France paused in their advance, and some of the foremost, dismounting from their horses, raised the overthrown cavalier from the ground, and were seen unlacing his casque. At the same time, the gentleman who had first followed the Duke of Burgundy began quietly retreating towards his friends, and though the Duke called to him aloud to stop, showed no disposition to comply. "Shall I bring him back, noble Duke?" exclaimed the young Lord of Lens, eager to win some renown. "Yes, ride after him, young sir," said John the Bold. "Remember, he is unarmed," cried Richard of Woodville, seeing the youth couch his lance, and fearing that he might forget, in his enthusiasm, the usages of war. "You are of a right chivalrous spirit, sir," said the Duke, turning to the young Englishman. "Do you know, my Lord of Viefville, who is that gentleman, whom he unhorsed just now?" "The Count de Vaudemont, I think," replied the nobleman to whom he spoke. "I saw him at the head of the men-at-arms in the forest." "Oh, yes, it is he," rejoined another. "Did you not see the cross crosslets on his housings?" "A good knight and stout cavalier as ever couched a lance," observed the Duke of Burgundy. "The young kestrel has caught the hawk," he continued, as the Lord of Lens, riding up to him of whom he had been in pursuit, brought him back apparently unwillingly towards the Burgundian party.