That was the reason of Martin Valliant’s madness and his wild dash across the heather. Fortune was with him in a sense, for he came through the butchery and the turmoil without being struck down by my Lord of Troy’s men. There was a space of calmness between the main rout and the fight that was going on between John Falconer and De Lisle, but the tussle was over before Martin drew near. Falconer lay dying from a spear thrust through the body; his men were down or had surrendered; De Lisle’s riders tossed their spears and cheered. Then Martin saw a sight that made him stand stone still and set his teeth. The group of steel-coated figures parted, and from the midst of them came riding the red knight, leading a white horse by the bridle. Martin Valliant saw Mellis drooping in the saddle, her hair falling over her face, her hands hanging as though she despaired. The red knight did not turn toward my lord’s camp, but rode calmly away over the plain toward the woods in the distance. No one followed him or the woman on the white horse. His men knew that Fulk de Lisle was not to be meddled with when he followed the chase and the game was a stag or a woman. Martin Valliant started running again, his face all white and twisted. But a certain cunning saved him from throwing his life and his hope away. He doubled sharply under the brow of the hill, caught a riderless horse that was standing nosing the heather, mounted, and urged the beast to a canter, keeping to the lower ground out of sight of the riders from Troy. When he was well clear he turned upwards on to Bracknell Plain, the reins in one hand, his hollywood staff in the other. The white horse and the red tabard showed a mile away over the heather, and Martin followed them with the grimness of death. _Chapter XXXVIII_ Fulk de Lisle rode for a mile without troubling to glance back. He was in great good humor, and trying to raise some color in the face of the girl beside him. She looked dazed, beaten, her eyes empty of all light, her hands gripping the pommel of her saddle. “Why so sad, sweet mistress? Am I not as good a man as any fellow yonder, and better than our friend the monk? I have won you on a fair field.” Her eyes glanced at him with furtive dread. “I know not who you are.” He put up his vizor and she knew him by his eyes, bold, brown, and merciless. “Ah!” Her frank horror angered him, and he reached out and twisted his hand into her hair. “What! Shall I have to tame you, teach you what manner of man I am? What others have had I will have also.” “Beast!” Her pride rose at his challenge. “Let me go, or I will throw myself out of the saddle.” “And be dragged by the hair, my shrew! No, no; such tricks will not serve. I have taken my prize, and this time I shall not be balked of it.” She knew her own helplessness, and constrained herself to try other weapons. “Let me go. You are hurting.”