“The fellow who took him is lying back there somewhere in the woods.” “And you’re not a highwayman, nor a thief, nor a scrivener after all?” “Tut, tut!” he replied. “I told you once before that you should never judge a man by his clothes. I’m a simple servant of the greatest fighter in France—the Black Prince there. Come,” he said touching me on the arm. “I think you have a word for him.” CHAPTER XXVIII VICTORY ... AND HOME I may say now that I have come to the end of my tale. I had come through as the Abbot said. But to my way of thinking it was more by blundering and good luck than by any craft or circumspection of mine. I was glad to have my horse back again. The feel of him under me was like home. I rode along towards the west—that is towards the encampment of the army of the Black Prince—with more joy in my heart than had been my share for many a day. It was by merest chance, I learned, that the Prince was in the neighborhood at all. His army lay a good two days’ journey off. He had sent scouts out to scour the country round about to warn him if the highways were safe for him to march to the south to his headquarters for the winter at Bordeaux. He had even gone out on an expedition himself. He had come upon a troop of the King’s horsemen and in pursuing them had ridden far out of his way, had outdistanced his followers and was lost for a night in the woods. He was on his way back when he came upon us, riding hard, for he had suspicions that there were more foes in the neighborhood than he had imagined. But when I unfolded to him the tale of what I had gone through—of the activities in the valley of the Loire, the preparations for war that were going on on every hand, the vast number of soldiers (there were sixteen thousand, twice the number of his entire force) that were moving with the greatest secrecy towards the west, when he heard this, I say, he gritted his teeth and cried out, “They want to cut us off on our way south. They think they can crush the power of England in France. They are tricksters and knaves, men like De Marsac and his crew. But we have English brawn back of us, men who will take their lives in their hands for the joy of battle and of conflict. We’ll beat them yet.” He clenched his fists and repeated it. “We’ll beat them yet.” And in the end it proved that he was right. I could spend another hour in your company and relate to you all that followed. But I feel that my manner of telling it would be incomplete. Besides the scribes of our times—men who knew how to wield the quill with greater skill than I—have written a history of it for all who will to read.