Lying drowned in cool silence, the girl came slowly to a consciousness that someone was stooping over her. Raising her heavy lids, eyes rested on a man’s face, showing dimly in the dusk of the starlight. He said in English, “Canute’s page, by the Saints!” A chorus of voices answered him: “The fiend’s brat that pierced your shoulder?”—“Choke him!”—“Better he die now than after he has waxed large on English blood.”—“Finish him!” Opening her eyes wider, she found that heads and shoulders made a black hedge around her. The victim of her blade straightened, shaking his shaggy mane. “Were I a Pagan Dane, I would run my sword through him. But I am a Christian Englishman. Let him lie. He will bleed his life out before morning.” “Come on, then,” the chorus growled. “The Etheling is asking what hinders us.”—“Make haste!”—“The Etheling is here!” While the warrior was turning, a new voice spoke. “Canute’s page?” it repeated after some unseen informant. “Is he dead?” It was a young voice, and deep and soft, for all the note of quiet authority ringing through it; something in its tone was agreeably different from the harsh utterance of the first speaker. Randalin’s eyes rose dreamily to find the owner. He had ridden up behind the others on a prancing white horse. Above the black hedge, the square strength of his shoulders and the graceful lines of his helmed head were silhouetted sharply against the starry sky. Why had they so familiar a look? Ah! the noble who had followed Edmund— So far she got, and then all was blotted out in a flash of pain, as the man nearest her put out a hand and touched her torn limb. “Wriggling like a fish, lord,” he answered the new-comer. A sound on the soft turf told that the horseman had alighted. “The bantling is of too good quality to leave,” he said good-naturedly. “Catch my bridle, Oswin. Where is he wounded?” He made a quick step toward her, then paused as suddenly, his chin thrust out in listening. A gesture of his hand imposed a sudden silence, through which the sound became distinct to all ears,—a trampling and crashing in the brush beyond the moonlit open. As they wheeled to face it, a shout came from that direction. “What ho! Does the Lord of Ivarsdale go there?” He whom they had called the Etheling drew himself up alertly. “I make no answer to hedge-creepers,” he said. “Come out where you can be seen.” The voice took on a mocking edge. “There is no gainsaying that I feel safer here. I am the messenger of Edric of Mercia.” Only a warning sign from the Lord of Ivarsdale restrained an angry chorus. He said with slow contempt, “I grant that it is well fitting the Gainer’s deeds that his men should flinch from the light—” “Misgreet me not,” the mocking voice interrupted. “Before cockcrow we shall be sworn brothers. I bear a message to King Edmund. And I want you to further me on my way by telling which direction will fetch me to his camp.”