"Have I not ordered you to leave
the countryfolk at peace?"
The leader of the archers, old Wat of Carlisle, held up a sword, a
girdle and a dagger. "If it please you, fair sir," said he, "I
saw the glint of these, and I thought them no fit tools for hands
which were made for the spade and the plow. But when we had
ridden them down and taken them, there was the Bentley cross upon
each, and we knew that they had belonged to yonder dead Englishman
upon the road. Surely then, these are two of the villains who
have slain him, and it is right that we do justice upon them."
Sure enough, upon sword, girdle and dagger shone the silver Molene
cross which had gleamed on the dead man's armor. Knolles looked
at them and then at the prisoners with a face of stone. At the
sight of those fell eyes they had dropped with inarticulate howls
upon their knees, screaming out their protests in a tongue which
none could understand.
"We must have the roads safe for wandering Englishmen," said
Knolles. "These men must surely die. Hang them to yonder tree."
He pointed to a live-oak by the roadside, and rode onward upon his
way in converse with his fellow-knights. But the old bowman had
ridden after him.
"If it please you, Sir Robert, the bowmen would fain put these men
to death in their own fashion," said he.
"So that they die, I care not how," Knolles answered carelessly,
and looked back no more.
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