“Let him swear to say nought of us, and let him go then,” one of the other leaders said in a surly way.

Then the chief got up and laughed at them all.

“There are six of us slain and a dozen with wounds, and we will make him pay for that and for Morgan as well before we have done with him.  Now we must not bide here, or we shall have his men back on us, seeking him.  Let us get away, and I will think of somewhat as we go.  There is profit to be made out of this business, if I am not mistaken.”

Then they brought my man’s horse, which they had caught, and set me on it, making my feet fast under the girth.  The men who had fallen they hid in the bushes, and it troubled me more than aught to think that Wulf should lie among them.  My horse they dragged into a hollow, and piled snow over him.  Then they went swiftly down the hillside into the deep combe, leaving only the trampled and reddened snow to tell that there had been a fight.

I had a hope for a little while that the track they left would be enough for my men to follow if they hit on it, but there was little snow lying in the sheltered woodlands, and there the track was lost.  And these men scattered presently in all directions, so that trace of them was none.  Only the leader and some dozen men stayed with me.

So they took me for many a long mile, always going seaward, until we were in a deep valley that bent round among the hills until its head was lost in their folds, and there was some sort of a camp of these outlaws sheltered from any wind that ever blew, and with a clear brook close at hand.  All round on the hillsides was the forest, but there was one landmark that I knew.

High over the valley’s head rose a great hill, and on that was an ancient camp.  It was what they call the “Dinas,” the refuge camp of the Quantock side, which one can see from Glastonbury and all the Mendips.

Here they took me from the horse and bound my feet afresh, and took the gag from my mouth and set me against a tree, and so waited until the band had gathered once more, lighting a great fire meanwhile.  Glad enough was I of its warmth, for it is cold work riding bound through the frost.

When that was done the leader bade some of those with him fetch the goods to this place, and catch some ponies ready against the journey.  I could not tell what this might mean, but I thought that they had no intention of biding here, and I was sorry in a dull way.  It had yet been a hope that they might be tracked by my men from the place of the fight.

After these men had gone hillward into the forest, others kept coming in from one way or another until almost all seemed to have returned.

One by one as these gathered, they came and looked at me, and laughed, making rough jests at me, which I heeded not at all, if they made my blood boil now and then.  Once, indeed, their leader shouted roughly to them to forbear, when some evil words came with a hoarse gust of laughter to his ears, and they said under their breath, chuckling as at a new jest: