“Fire!  Fire!”

“Aye, fire!” roared the miller, “see yonder!” and he pointed where a column of thick smoke mounted slowly upon the windless air.  But with the cry came tumult—­a hurry of feet, shouts and yells and hoarse commands; armour clashed and pike-heads glittered, down-sweeping for the charge.  Then Walkyn laughed, and hurling the pale head down at the nearest soldiery, drew from his smock his mighty axe and swung it, but lo! ’twixt him and the pike-men was a surging, ravening mob that closed, front and rear, upon knight and squire, upon pike-man and man-at-arms, men who leapt to grip mailed throats in naked hands, women who screamed and tore.  And one by one, knight and squire, and man-at-arms, smiting, shrieking, groaning, were dragged down with merciless hands, to be wrenched at, torn, and trampled ’neath merciless feet, while high and clear above this fierce and dreadful clamour rose the shrill summons of a horn.

And lo! a shout—­a roar—­drowning the shrieks of dying men, the screams of vengeful women, “Arise—­arise—­Pentavalon!” Came a rush of feet, a shock, and thereafter a confused din that rose and fell and, gradually ceasing, was lost in a sudden clamour of bells, fierce-pealing in wild and joyous riot.

“Aha! ’tis done—­’tis done!” panted Roger, stooping to cleanse his blade, “spite of all our lack of method, Giles—­’tis done!  Hark ye to those joy-bells!  So doth fair Belsaye shout to all men she is free at last and clean of Gui and all his roguish garrison—­”

“Clean?” quoth Giles.  “Clean, forsooth?  Roger—­O Roger man, I have seen men die in many and diver ungentle ways ere now, but these men—­ these men of Gui’s, look—­look yonder!  O sweet heaven keep me ever from the tearing hands of vengeful mothers and women wronged!” And turning his back on the littered market square, Giles shivered and leaned him upon his sword as one that is sick.

“Nay,” said Black Roger, “Gui’s black knaves being rent in pieces, Giles, we shall be saved the hanging of them—­ha! there sounds my lord’s horn, and ’tis the rallying-note—­come away, Giles!”

Side by side they went, oft stepping across some shapeless horror, until in their going they chanced on one that knelt above a child, small and dead.  And beholding the costly fashion of this man’s armour, Roger stooped, and wondering, touched his bowed shoulder: 

“Sir Fidelis,” said he, “good young messire, and art thou hurt, forsooth?”

“Hurt?” sighed Sir Fidelis, staring up great-eyed, “hurt?  Nay, behold this sweet babe—­ah, gentle Christ—­so innocent—­and slain!  A tender babe!  And yonder—­yonder, what dire sights lie yonder—­” and sighing, the youthful knight sank back across Black Roger’s arm and so lay speechless and a-swoon.

Quoth Roger, grim-smiling: 

“What, Giles, here’s one that loveth woman’s finger-work no more than thou!” Thus saying, he stooped and lifting the young knight in his arms, bore him across the square, stumbling now and then on things dim-seen in the dark, for night was at hand.