But if Nigel's friends had learned that this was the morning of
his leaving, his enemies too were on the alert. The two comrades
had just emerged from the Chantry woods and were beginning the
ascent of that curving path which leads upward to the old Chapel
of the Martyr when with a hiss like an angry snake a long white
arrow streaked under Pommers and struck quivering in the grassy
turf. A second whizzed past Nigel's ear, as he tried to turn; but
Aylward struck the great war-horse a sharp blow over the haunches,
and it had galloped some hundreds of yards before its rider could
pull it up. Aylward followed as hard as he could ride, bending
low over his horse's neck, while arrows whizzed all around him.
"By Saint Paul!" said Nigel, tugging at his bridle and white with
anger, "they shall not chase me across the country as though I was
a frighted doe. Archer, how dare you to lash my horse when I
would have turned and ridden in upon them?"
"It is well that I did so," said Aylward, "or by these ten finger-
bones! our journey would have begun and ended on the same day. As
I glanced round I saw a dozen of them at the least amongst the
brushwood. See now how the light glimmers upon their steel caps
yonder in the bracken under the great beech-tree. Nay, I pray
you, my fair lord, do not ride forward. What chance has a man in
the open against all these who lie at their ease in the underwood?
If you will not think of yourself, then consider your horse, which
would have a cloth-yard shaft feathered in its hide ere it could
reach the wood.
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