"If I wished to rob thee, my gentleman," answered Longpole, "I'd cut thy throat too, for breaking my companion's head, who lies there in the road as if he were dead, or rather as if he were asleep, for he's snoring like the father-hog of a large family, the Portingallo vagabond! However, I'll have you both away; then those who sent to seek you will know which it is they want. Hollo there! knock that fellow down that's fingering the bags. If one of you touch a stiver I'll make your skins smart for it." "I see several Portingals," said Sir Osborne, "or I mistake. Is it not so?" "Ay, Portingals and Dutchers, and such like mixed," replied Longpole. "But come; you must go along." A light now broke upon the mind of Sir Osborne. "Listen," cried he to the Englishman, as he was preparing to lead them away; "how comes it that you Englishmen join yourselves with a beggarly race of wandering vagabonds to revenge the quarrel of a base-born Portingallo captain upon one of your own countrymen? Give me but a moment, and you shall hear whether he did not deserve the punishment I inflicted." Longpole seemed willing to hear, and one or two others came round, while the rest employed themselves in quieting the knight's horse, that, finding himself in hands he was unaccustomed to, began plunging and kicking most violently. "I will be short," said the knight. "This Portingal had agreed to furnish a cargo of fruits to the Imperial army in Flanders; 'tis now two years ago, for we had a malignant fever in the camp. He got the money when they were landed, and was bringing them under a small escort, which I commanded, when we found our junction cut off by the right wing of the enemy's army, which had wheeled. The greatest exertion was necessary to pass round through a hollow way; the least noise, the least flutter of a pennon, would have betrayed us to the French outposts, who were not more than a bow-shot from us, when our Portingal stopped in the midst, and vowed he would not go on, unless I promised to pay him double for the fruit, and not to tell anybody of what he had done. If I had run my lance through him, as I was tempted, his companions would have made a noise, and we were lost; so I was obliged to promise. He knew he could trust the word of an English knight, so he went on quietly enough, and got his money; but then I took him out into a field, and after a struggle, I tied him to a tree, and lashed him with my stirrup-leathers till his back was flayed. He was not worth a knight's sword, or I would have swept his head off. But tell me, is it for this a party of Englishmen maltreat their countrymen?"