Both men made a move with their hands, when the eyes of us all were drawn to the figure of a lone rider who had just come into sight around the bend in the road. He was on a horse as black as the raven’s wing. He must have been driving hard for its flanks were covered with white sweat and the froth was dripping from its mouth. The man himself was not much bigger than the Abbot. Although he was clad in a suit of black chained mail and had a casque on with the visor closed, I was able to see that his body was of unusual sturdiness with great breadth of shoulders and thickness of limb. When he came up he drew rein, and with a smoothness that I had not expected, asked, “A fight, my gentles?” The Abbot answered. “—about to begin,” he said. “Ho, ho!” was the reply. “But, I hope, not the four of you against one?” I am sure the knight flushed under his helmet at the slyness of the taunt. “Not at the same time,” he answered, and shifted uneasily on his saddle. “But no matter. He ought to die, for he is enemy of the King.” The other laughed, and slowly moved over to the side of the Abbot. “And so am I,” he answered. “Do you think I ought to die too?” The knight gathered the reins in his hands. “Who are you?” he demanded. The Abbot interrupted. “When you were coming up, my lord,” he said turning to the rider, “we were about to uncover. I have a suspicion that I know this man. He tells me that before I die he would like to know me——” But the knight made a gesture full of wrath. “We are wasting time!” he cried and put his hand to his visor. “When you drop from your saddle—dead, you will know that it was the Sieur de Marsac who killed you!” The Abbot laughed, a slow taunting laugh. “You know me as the Abbot of Chalonnes, my lord de Marsac. My shadow has hovered over these hills and valleys. I have balked your schemes and plans a hundred times,” he said impressively. “But I have worn other garbs than these,—and other faces. I have been a fool, a beggar, a highwayman—a dozen persons in one. I have watched you try trick after trick. I have snapped my fingers under your nose. All the time you thought yourself so clever, you have been but a bungler and a dunce.” He raised his visor inch by inch till his whole face was revealed. “Did you ever dream that you would be confronted, in armor such as this and on a footing equal to yours, your old friend, the Scrivener, the Highwayman of Tours?” De Marsac’s mouth fell open. He looked, as though he were in a dream, from the Scrivener to the knight on the black horse. “You!” he cried. “I have seen you, too, some time and some place before!” “You have, de Marsac,” came the reply in a voice that shook like a peal of thunder. “We have met ere this. But today it will be for the last time. I shall not raise my visor, for I think you know now it would be useless. I am Edward, the son of England’s King, the Black Prince!”