Then came the voice of old William, cracked and broken with his fear for our safety, and striving hard to stay us from an emprise which seemed certain death: “Turn, Masters! Turn ere they sight us. We are too few and too lightly armed to face such numbers. An we go forward, they’ll spit us with their shafts like a roast at the fire. Come, Sir Dickon! Come, I pray thee. My Lord Mountjoy leans upon me to bring thee safe through. Back to the greenwood while yet there’s time.” I uttered not a word, and firmly held my restive steed; but I saw in Cedric’s face no thought of flight nor care for life or limb,—rather the look of a noble hound that spies the frothing, tusker boar at slaughter of his comrades, and beseeches but the word that looses him against the monster’s flank. And now Cedric’s horse and mine sprang forward together. To this day I know naught of any settled thought of riding to the attack. Mayhap the limbs that came to me as my heritage from a line of fighting men that never endured to see foul ambush and treachery have their way did move without any guidance and set the spurs against my horse’s sides. Cedric rode the great war-horse which he had won from the Carleton; and though my own mount was a fair tall stallion, half of Arab strain, the forester drew ahead on the rough pathway e’en while he drew his cross-bow cord and fitted bolt to groove. In a moment I had charged my weapon also; and then I found old William by my side, his cross-bow in his hands and all his protests forgotten. Now the hoofs of our mounts thundered most sweetly on the sward, and for all the folly of our venture, I felt such an uplifting of the heart as I had known but once or twice before in all my life. As we neared the fray at the wood’s edge, I shouted the battle cry of Mountjoy; and, my two companions joining with a will, we came down upon the varlets like a troop of armored horse. As we approached ’twas clear that the outlaws had all the better of the fight. One of the men-at-arms lay dead on the ground, and the other though still fighting blindly had twice been pierced by arrows in neck and face. The robbers had a chieftain who carried no bow, but a sword only, and who had been ordering and cheering on his men while striking no blow himself. Now the youth in the white tunic, who had received no hurt as yet, dashed toward him and struck full bravely with his golden-hilted sword, but wildly and in a way unskilled. The robber met the blow with a twisting parry that struck the hilt from the boy’s hand and sent the blade whirling away into the underbrush; then leaping forward he seized the youth’s shoulder and pulled him from his horse. [Illustration: _HE GAVE NO INCH OF GROUND SAVE TO LEAP FROM SIDE TO SIDE IN AVOIDING MY DOWNWARD STROKES_]