"At a point equally distant from thine, most gracious liege, and those of the infamous Richard. He desires thee to understand that his beloved son's head hangs upon his dissembling devotion for yet a few hours to the murderous hunchback's cause." "Aye--I know. We may depend upon him and his three thousand horse, think you?" "With absolute certainty, my lord." "'Tis well," observed Henry, laying aside his feathered cap and stooping to allow his young squire to adjust a steel helmet to his shoulder-guards. "Then do thou, my lord of Oxford," he resumed, "have thy archers well in hand and ready against the first show of dawn. The sun, standing in our enemy's eyes, should much confuse their aim. Bend thy every energy toward staying their advance with a cloud of well directed bolts. My good Captain Blunt, let our basilisks in the wood fling their leaden hail above the heads of our kneeling archers. Sir Walter Herbert, let thy mounted troop to the right and left be ready for the final charge. And you, Sir Richard, faithful friend, bear upon my right hand till the battle's done. Do thou each, noble gentlemen, take one of these roses and entwine it with thy helmet's crest. What, ho, guards! strip me this tent and bestow it with the camp litter behind the wood. Now, thy brave hands, noble sirs; and God smile upon our cause." Into the dense vapors arising from the morass, which, in the gray light of daybreak, were rapidly changing to a pearly mist, the leaders then dispersed upon their several missions. The droning of subdued conversation, the clanking of swords and steel gear, the twanging of bow-strings undergoing preliminary trial, and the tinkling of pewter flagons discharging their liquid cheer into parched throats could be heard over all the field. Each armed host was alert and ready, awaiting with tense drawn nerves the flaming signal in the eastern sky. From afar off a cock crowed a cheery welcome to approaching day. "I would the blessed light would discover me an eye-hole across the brook," one of the burly archers was saying. "I'd flick me a bolt into its yawning center for God and a better king." "Yea--truly. And any king, my friend, would be a better king," another answered. "I would I could but fasten my aim upon the elfish-marked monster himself. 'Twould be a mark worth finding, i' faith." "My lord of Oxford is a brave and clever captain, lad. Were it not for these leather guards our bow-strings would have been no whit more useful than frayed rope's ends with this cursed damp. As 'tis, they're fit to send a quiverful of white-hot billets into as many traitorous gizzards. I, too, would that one of them might make its home within the green midric of Richard himself." "Hast heard the latest from the hunchback's camp?" another whispered. "Nay. What is 't?" "'Tis said by the outposts along the slough that there were heard wild shriekings in King Richard's tent during the night."