However, Oliver very soon became convinced that he was likely in that case to have a much longer vigil than suited his inclination or convenience. Adopting, therefore, the expedient of moving from tree to tree--which was just possible, seeing that they grew thick and that the branches interlaced--he ultimately, with much difficulty, and not without considerable danger to neck and limb, and which was all the greater from his being incumbered with his axe, contrived to get to a safe distance from the spot where the herd were still madly and furiously tearing up the ground that had been smeared with blood, and bellowing with savage rage. Muttering his thanks to the saints for his release from a peril which he had so little foreseen, Oliver took his way towards the camp of refuge, which he contrived to reach a little after sunrise. But he soon found that he was scarcely himself: his dream haunted him awake and asleep, and next day he was prostrate, and so feverish that the aid of the anchorite of the isle was invoked. In a few days, however, Oliver recovered his strength sufficiently to move about, and he was seated among the ruins and conversing with Collingham about their position and prospects when Wolf the varlet suddenly presented himself, and related, with tears in his eyes, all that had befallen at Oakmede, from the moment when he was alarmed by the approach of the French to the hour when Dame Isabel was laid at rest in St. Dunstan’s Chapel. Oliver listened sadly and in silence, and did not indicate even by a gesture either his indignation or his wish to have revenge. But he internally swore a solemn oath to fight the Count de Perche whenever and wherever he should meet him, and not to part till one or the other had fallen, and in the event of his killing the count to cut off his head and carry it to Oakmede and hang it by the hair on a tree, that it might be food for crows. Collingham was differently affected, and intimated that he, at all events, was determined to have an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. “By the rood,” exclaimed he, as Wolf told the story, “this noble Count de Perche shall know better ere long with what manner of man he has to deal. He has whetted the beak of my raven, and there is not a raven in Sussex like to lack its food this spring if I can find French carrion enough to supply them.” Within half an hour of Wolf’s arrival in the island proclamation was made in a loud voice--“Let no man in this camp henceforth take quarter from or give quarter to the foreign invaders, on pain of being held mean and niddering; and if any man in the camp will not conform to this rule let him depart on the morrow at break of day.”