Page:A C Doyle - The White Company.djvu/411

Rh 'By my troth! I think very well of it,' cried the prudent old commander. 'If four hundred men must needs run a tilt against sixty thousand, I cannot see how they can do it better or more safely.'

'And so say I,' cried Felton, heartily. 'But I wish the day were over, for it will be an ill thing for us if they chance to light upon us.' The words were scarce out of his mouth when there came a clatter of loose stones, the sharp clink of trotting hoofs, and a dark-faced cavalier, mounted upon a white horse, burst through the bushes and rode swiftly down the valley from the end which was farthest from the Spanish camp. Lightly armed, with his vizor open and a hawk perched upon his left wrist, he looked about him with the careless air of a man who is bent wholly upon pleasure, and unconscious of the possibility of danger. Suddenly, however, his eyes lit upon the fierce faces which glared out at him from the brushwood. With a cry of terror, he thrust his spurs into his horse's sides and dashed for the narrow opening of the gorge. For a moment it seemed as though he would have reached it, for he had trampled over or dashed aside the archers who threw themselves in his way; but Hordle John seized him by the foot in his grasp of iron and dragged him from the saddle, while two others caught the frightened horse.

'Ho, ho!' roared the great archer. 'How many cows wilt buy my mother, if I set thee free?'

'Hush that bull's bellowing!' cried Sir Nigel, impatiently. 'Bring the man here. By Saint Paul! it is not the first time that we have met; for, if I mistake not, it is Don Diego Alvarez, who was once at the prince's court.'

'It is indeed I,' said the Spanish knight, speaking in the French tongue, 'and I pray you to pass your sword through my heart; for how can I live—I, a caballero of Castile—after being dragged from my horse by the base hands of a common archer?'

'Fret not for that,' answered Sir Nigel. 'For, in sooth, had he not pulled you down, a dozen cloth-yard shafts had crossed each other in your body.'