“Nay, Roger, sworn art thou to redeem Pentavalon:  so now, in her name do I charge thee, haste to Sir Jocelyn, an he yet live—­seek Giles and Walkyn and whoso else ye may, and bring them hither at speed.  If ye find me not here, then hie ye all to Thrasfordham, for by to-morrow Sir Pertolepe and Gui of Allerdale will have raised the country against us.  Go now, do even as I command, and may God keep thee, my faithful Roger.”  Then Beltane began to climb, but being come where the great branch forked, looked down to see Roger’s upturned face, pale amid the gloom below.

“The holy angels have thee in their keeping, lord and master!” he sighed, and so turned with head a-droop and was gone.  And now Beltane began to clamber out across the swirl of dark waters, while the tough bough swung and swayed beneath him in every gust of wind, wherefore his going was difficult and slow, and he took heed only to his hands and feet.

But, all at once, he heard a bitter, broken cry, and glancing up, it chanced that from his lofty perch he could look within the lighted window, and thus beheld a nun, whose slender, black-robed body writhed and twisted in the clasp of two leathern-clad arms; vicious arms, that bent her back and back across the rough table, until into Beltane’s vision came the leathern-clad form of him that held her:  a black-haired, shapely man, whose glowing eyes and eager mouth stooped ever nearer above the nun’s white loveliness.

And thus it was that my Beltane first looked upon Sir Gilles of Brandonmere.  He had laid sword and armour by, but as the nun yet struggled in his arms, her white hand came upon and drew the dagger at his girdle, yet, ere she could strike, Sir Gilles had seen and leapt back out of reach.

Then Beltane clambered on at speed, and with every yard their voices grew more loud—­hers proud and disdainful, his low and soft, pierced, now and then, by an evil, lazy laugh.

Now ever as Beltane went, the branch swayed more dizzily, bending more and more beneath his weight, and ever as he drew nearer, between the wind-gusts came snatches of their talk.

“Be thou nun, or duchess, or strolling light-o’-love, art woman—­by Venus! fair and passing fair!—­captive art thou—­aye, mine, I tell thee—­yield thee—­hast struggled long enough to save thy modesty—­yield thee now, else will I throw thee to my lusty rogues without—­make them sport—­”

“O—­beast—­I fear thee not!  For thy men—­how shall they harm me, seeing I shall be dead!”

Down swayed the branch, low and lower, until Beltane’s mailed foot, a-swing in mid air, found something beneath—­slipped away—­found it again, and thereupon, loosing the branch, down he came upon the ruined mill-wheel.  Then, standing upon the wheel, his groping fingers found divers cracks in the worn masonry—­moreover the ivy was thick; so, clinging with fingers and toes, up he went, higher and higher until his steel-mittened hands gripped the sill:  thus, slowly and cautiously he drew himself up until his golden head rose above the sill and he could peer into the room.