Then with a sick fear the two serfs knew into whose hands they had fallen. With an icy chill of despair, they realised that these were Fulke's men, and that his vengeance was long-armed, and had come upon them stealthily in the night. Then in that moment of anguish, they tasted all the bitterness of death. The new, fair life that was opening before them so brightly vanished in a flash. The old cruel voices of their masters were like heavy chains; a black curtain fell desolately and finally over their lives. Suddenly one of the men who had been scrutinising them closely gave a loud and joyous cry. "God's rood!" he shouted. "These be the two men themselves a-coming to meet with us in t' wood! Mordieu, these be the murderers!" The men-at-arms crowded round the captives with cries of savage joy. "The Saints have done this," cried one man. Then, being above all things soldiers, and alive to all the fortunes and chances which await men in a hostile neighbourhood, they bound the serfs with thongs, and hurried them swiftly down the hill to the boat. CHAPTER XI "Roweth on fast! who that is faint In evil water may he be dreynt!" They rowed hard and sung thereto With hevelow and rumbeloo. The boat glided through the reeds and hissed among the stalks as it floated off into deep water. The man-at-arms who had been pushing it scrambled over the flat stern drenched to his waist. Hyla and Cerdic lay bound where they had been flung at the bottom of the boat as roughly and carelessly as sacks of meal. They moved slowly over the deep black waters. "The priests'll wake to find the pies flown," said Huber, emphasising his remark with a lusty kick upon the prostrate Cerdic. "What will they think?" asked some one. "I neither know eke care. Perchance it will be thought the divill has took them to his own place." "Whence they will shortly go." "Not before they have tasted of hell in Hilgay," and the speaker went on to enumerate with much spirit and vividness the several tortures to which the captives would be subjected before Death was merciful. That these were no idle boasts to frighten them Cerdic and Hyla were very well aware. They had seen with their own eyes how men were punished for a far less offence than theirs. Nameless atrocities were committed upon the serfs, and the mocking words of the soldier had a terrible significance for them. The boat moved but very slowly. It was heavy, and the men were all tired out. Moreover, the night was oppressively hot even out upon the water. Most of the rowers stripped to the waist and flung their garments down into the bottom of the boat. Hyla and Cerdic were covered with heavy, evil-smelling garments, and almost suffocated. "I cannot breathe," whispered Hyla to Cerdic. "Hist, listen! Get thy head down lower. Yes, so. Feel you my hands and the thong. There now; bite till I am free and can get at my dog-knife. God be praised, they did not see it!"