Page:A C Doyle - The White Company.djvu/443

Rh 'He is dead, I fear. I saw them throw his body across a horse and ride away with it, but I fear the life had gone from him.'

'Now woe worth me! And where is Aylward?'

'He sprang upon a riderless horse and rode after Sir Nigel to save him. I saw them throng around him, and he is either taken or slain.'

'Blow the bugles!' cried Sir Hugh, with a scowling brow. 'We must back to camp, and ere three days I trust that we may see these Spaniards again. I would fain have ye all in my company.'

'We are of the White Company, my fair lord,' Said John.

'Nay, the White Company is here disbanded,' answered Sir Hugh solemnly, looking round him at the lines of silent figures. 'Look to the brave squire, for I fear that he will never see the sun rise again.'

  was a bright July morning four months after that fatal fight in the Spanish barranca. A blue heaven stretched above, a green rolling plain undulated below, intersected with hedgerows and flecked with grazing sheep. The sun was yet low in the heaven, and the red cows stood in the long shadow of the elms, chewing the cud and gazing with great vacant eyes at two horsemen who were spurring it down the long white road which dipped and curved away back to where the towers and pinnacles beneath the flat-topped hill marked the old town of Winchester.

Of the riders, one was young, graceful, and fair, clad in plain doublet and hosen of blue Brussels cloth, which served to show his active and well-knit figure. A flat velvet cap was drawn forward to keep the glare from his eyes, and he rode with lips compressed and anxious face, as one who has much care upon his mind. Young as he was, and peaceful 