He twisted in the saddle as though her words gored him to the quick. His face twitched, his eyes glittered. "My God, keep silence!" "Fulviac." "Taunt me no longer. Have I not half hell boiling in my heart?" Thus Fulviac and his rebels passed on spoiling towards Gilderoy and the sea, where Sforza lay camped with forces gathered from the south. The great forest beckoned them; they knew its trammels, and hoped for strategies therein. Like a vast web of gloom it proffered harbour to the wolves of war, for they feared the open, and the vengeful onrush of the royal chivalry. Meanwhile, the armies of the King came down upon Belle Forêt, a great horde of steel. From its black ashes the country welcomed them with the dumb lips of death. Ruin and slaughter appealed them on the march; the smoke of war ascended to their nostrils. Fierce was the cry for vengeance in the ranks, as the host poured on like a golden dawn treading on the dark heels of night. XXXIX In a cave whose narrow mouth cut a rough cameo from the snow and azure of the sky, a man lay sleeping upon a bed of heather. The surge of the sea rose from the bastions of the cliff, where foam glittered and swirled over the black rocks that thrust their dripping brows above the tide. Gulls were winging over the waves, whose green crests shone brilliant under the sun. On a distant headland, bleak and sombre, the towers of a castle broke the turquoise crescent of the heavens. In one corner of the cave a feeble fire flickered, the smoke therefrom curling along the roof to vanish in a thin blue plume of vapour. Beside the bed lay a pile of armour, with a broken casque like a cleft skull to crown it. Dried herbs and a loaf of rye bread lay on a flat boulder near the fire. The figure on the heather was covered by a stained yet gorgeously blazoned surcoat, that seemed an incongruous quilt for such a couch. Near the cave’s entry a great axe glittered on the floor, an axe whose notched edge had tested the metal of many a bassinet. Down a rough path cut in the face of the cliff scrambled a gaunt, hollow-chested figure, doubleted in soiled scarlet, battered shoes on feet, a black beard bristling on the stubborn chin. A red cloth was bound about the man’s head. He breathed hard as he clambered down the cliff, as though winded by fast running. Sweat stood on his forehead. Beneath him ran the sea, a pit of foam, swirling and muttering amid the rocks. He reached the entry of the cave and dived therein like a fox into an "earth." Standing by the bed, he looked for a moment at the unconscious figure with the air of one unwilling to wake a weary comrade from his sleep. At last he went down on his knees by the heather, and touched the sleeping man’s cheek with the gentle gesture of a woman. The figure stirred at the touch; two thin hands groped over the green and azure quilt. The kneeling man gripped them in his great brown paws, and held them fast.