For, as he vanished into the black night, he could hear John Scarlett advising the first man who desired three feet of cold steel through his vitals to step up and be accommodated. And as he turned eastward towards Amersfort, riding beneath the silent bulk of the old castle of Brederode, he heard again the clash of iron and the cry of pain which he knew so well. He smiled a little grimly, and wished nothing better than that his papers had been delivered, and he again at work at his old master's elbow. Presently, however, having, as it seemed to him, left all possibility of pursuit behind, Wat put his horse into an easier pace, and rode on by silent and unfrequented paths towards the east, judging his direction by the stars--which had been an old study of his when it was his hap to take to the heather in the black days of the Covenant in Scotland. As he went he became aware of the noise of a horse galloping swiftly behind him. He drew his sword and stood on the defence, lest the sound should betoken a new danger; but presently he heard a voice calling his own name loudly: "Wat Gordon! I say, Wat Gordon!" It was the voice of Jack Scarlett, his late enemy and present deliverer. He rode up beside Walter, very strange to look upon, clad in some suit of white or pale blanket-color that glimmered in the dusk of the night. "I gave half a dozen of the rascals that which it will be two days or they get the better of, I'se warrant," he said, chuckling to himself; "and then, thinking that mayhap I might not be welcome any longer in the army of France, I e'en came my ways after you. As I rode I cast my uniform and left my commission in the pocket of my coat. So I am but poor masterless Jack Scarlett once more--a free comrade looking for a regiment, and equipped with nothing but his thews and his long sword, which, God be thanked, are both his own. Think ye the States-General and the Yellow Prince have need of such as I?" "And how now about the anointed king?" Wat could not help saying. "The anointed king is safe in Whitehall, and can afford to wait till Jack Scarlett is a little less hungry," answered the free-lance, frankly. Having been thus fortunate in obtaining the only two good horses about the inn of Brederode (for the Frenchmen had come by sea to the little port of Lis-op-Zee, and the horses of the Calf and the Killer were but sorry jades), Scarlett had ridden all the way back without a challenge, or so much as encountering any sound more threatening than the roopy chuckle of disturbed poultry on the farm-house roosts as he clattered by on his way.