“So will I come and watch thee die—­hangman, and loose a shaft or two on mine own account!”

But now, of a sudden, Walkyn raised a warning hand.

“Hark!” said he:  and, in a while, as they listened, upon the stillness came a rustle of leaves and thereafter a creeping step drawing slowly nearer:  then swift and soft-treading, Walkyn stole out into the shadows.

Very soon he returned, leading a woman, pale and haggard, who clasped a babe within her threadbare cloak; her eyes were red and sore with much weeping and upon the threshold she paused as one in sudden fear, but espying the friar, she uttered a cry: 

“O Father Martin—­good father—­pray, pray for the soul of him who is father to my child, but who at dawn must die with many others upon my lord Duke’s great gallows!”

“Alas!” cried the friar, wringing his hands, “what news is this?”

“O good friar,” sobbed the woman, “my lord’s hand hath been so heavy upon us of late—­so heavy:  and there came messengers from Thrasfordham in Bourne bidding us thither with fair promises:—­and my father, being head of our village, hearkened to them and we made ready to cross into Bourne.  But my lord came upon us and burned our village of Shallowford and lashed my father with whips and thereafter hanged him, and took my man and many others and cast them into the great dungeon at Belsaye—­ and with the dawn they must hang upon the Duke’s great gallows.”

So she ended and stood weeping as one that is hopeless and weary.  But of a sudden she screamed and pointed at Black Roger with her finger: 

“’Tis Roger!” she cried, “’tis Black Roger, that slew my father!”

Then Roger the Black groaned and hid his face within his arm and shrank before the woman’s outstretched finger and, groaning, cowered to his knees; whereupon the archer turned his back and spat upon the floor while Walkyn glared and fingered his great axe:  but in this moment my Beltane came beside him and laid his hand on Roger’s stooping shoulder.

“Nay,” said he, “this is my friend henceforth, a man among men, who liveth to do great things as thus:  To-night he will give back to thee the father of thy child, and break open the dungeon of Belsaye!”

Thus spake my Beltane while all stared at his saying and held their peace because of their amaze:  only Black Roger turned of a sudden and caught his hand and kissed it savagely.

“Sir,” said the woman, peering up in Beltane’s face, “Lord—­ah, would ye mock the weak and helpless—­”

“Nay,” said Beltane gently, “as God seeth me, to-night the prisoners shall go free, or this man and I die with them.  So now be comforted—­go you to Bourne, to Sir Benedict within Thrasfordham Keep, and say you come from Beltane, Duke of Pentavalon, who swore thee, by the honour of the Duke Beltane his father, that never again shall a man hang from the great gallows of Black Ivo the usurper—­from this night it shall cease to be!”