There they dismounted, and leaving their horses with Ralph, who awaited them, Hugh and Edith entered the rush-strewn Hall. It stretched before them, high-ceiled, gloomy, its bareness scarce concealed by flapping tapestries and the long tables that reached from the door to the platform reserved for the Lord of the Manor and his family and guests. In one corner a fire blazed dimly in a huge, open hearth. Otherwise the only illumination was the scant sunlight that crept through loopholes in the massy walls. On the dais sat Sir Godwin and the man they had met that morning on the London Road. The Lord of Blancherive sprang to his feet as they entered. He was a small man, very wiry, with immensely broad shoulders; but he carried himself with a dignity that enhanced his stature. "What ado we have had!" he called in a deep, brazen voice--the voice of a warrior. "Could you not have done your hunting some other time, my children? But no--I am unfair. You could have done it no other time. You did right to pleasure yourselves, whilst you could." "Why, Uncle Godwin, what do you mean?" cried Edith. "Anon, anon," he answered, and turned to Hugh. "I have had great need of you, Hugh," he went on. "You are our clerk, and without you I have been helpless." He held up several rolls of parchment, tied with parti-coloured silk and decorated with elaborate pendant seals. "Is it from father?" exclaimed Edith. "It is. Sore news, my maid. Nay, do not weep. 'Tis fine news for you. For me it spells loneliness, an Hugh makes good his threat and leaves me, too." Both Hugh and Edith regarded him in bewilderment. Hugh shifted his gaze suddenly to the stranger, and met a stare focussed on his own face. But the man from Outremer looked quickly away. "But I do not understand," said Hugh. "'Tis simply that my brother hath sent for Edith, as we knew he must when it seemed him best," answered Sir Godwin. "He hath sent word by the Most Noble Messer Andrea Mocenigo, Special Ambassador to King John, who, he hath been telling me, journeyed hither in one of the dromons of the Emperor of Constantinople, all the way by the Inner Sea, past the country of the Soldan of Babylon, the country of the man-eating people and around the land of the Moors through the Great Ocean. Truly a marvellous venture!" The stranger bowed. "You exalt me unduly, my lord," he said. "And Edith must go by the same way?" asked Hugh, turning the parchments in his hands. Sir Godwin looked to his guest. "'Tis so," replied Mocenigo. "But fear not, Sir Englishman. My ship is large, my crew brave and well-armed. I have done the journey before this." "I like it not," said Hugh stubbornly.