Be that as it might, ten minutes had not passed before Dunwoodie with his half hundred archers was reinforced by a gallant array of bowmen and men-at-arms. The outlaws, a hundred or more in number, and led by the Monkslayer himself, had been pressing Dunwoodie hard. The robber chief, carrying a sword and wearing the steel cap and breast-plate of a knight, stood forth from all shelter, commanding and exhorting his followers, apparently with no fear at all of flying shafts and quarrels. The men of Dunwoodie Manor fought from behind trees and rocks; and most of them had quilted, leathern jackets; but they were no match in archery, for the outlaws, many of whom, by virtue of their skill with the long-bow, had lived for years in the forest and never lacked for venison or greatly feared the sheriff and his men. Half a dozen Dunwoodie archers already lay weltering on the leaves, struck through throat or face with cloth-yard shafts; and only one or two of the robber knaves had been likewise served. Our coming, however, changed all in a twinkling. Mountjoy struck the outlaws on one flank just as Lionel of Montmorency came down upon the other. In the time a man would need to run a furlong’s length, a score or more of the varlets were slain by shafts and cross-bow quarrels or by the swords of our men-at-arms, fifty more had clasped their hands above their heads in token of surrender, and the Monkslayer and the remainder of his crew had taken flight toward the center of the forest. My father, who had been chosen leader by the other nobles, now called a halt and sent out a half dozen messengers to right and left to see and report to him the state of our cordon. Some of these returned in half an hour with their news, while others made the entire circuit of the forest, bearing Lord Mountjoy’s commands for the reforming and tightening of the skirmish line and for the delaying of further advance till he should give the word. Since the scattering of the main body of the robbers a number of the fugitives had been creeping back with their hands tightly clasped over their heads and begging for quarter. It was my father’s thought that, in a day’s time, these desertions from the outlaw band would be so many that the task of surrounding and taking the remainder and the Monkslayer himself would be a light one. At two o’clock Sir Geoffrey joined us with thirty of his men. The main body he had left under old Hubert on the other side of Blackpool. He was aching for a sight of the outlaws, and deemed our chances of encountering them again better than those along the line he had been guarding. Sir Geoffrey had grown brown and sturdy in the summer just past, and had added near an inch to his stature. Now he handled his cross-bow like a skilled archer, and was soon in eager talk with Cedric over the practice at moving marks.