“See,” said Pierre, “the moon is rising; we shall have it quite light soon.”

“Would it had risen earlier,” croaked Ralph.

The dogs, their noses to the ground, went on bravely, winding in and out between quagmire and rotting herbage.  Had the light been brighter, our Normans would have perceived the impressions of numerous footmarks of men on the path they were taking—­the dogs were at last on the scent they had sought all day, whether for weal or for woe.

At length the path suddenly ascended a bank, and the light through the tree tops showed that they were approaching a clearing.

They ascended cautiously, and from the summit of the short ascent looked out upon an elevated tableland in the midst of the morass.  Before them, encircled by a little brook, which shortly afterwards swelled the waters of the morass, stood a large rustic dwelling, overgrown with ivy; and not far distant rose many houses or huts—­in fact, to their no small amazement, they beheld a village, and one, too, that no individual amongst them had ever seen or heard of before.

“’Tis the very nest of vipers we have sought all day,” said Etienne.

“And have found to our undoing,” lamented Ralph.

“See, there is light behind that shutter, I will creep up and look in,” said Etienne; “rest you all here.”

There was no glass in common use in those days, and, save when horn was employed, people—­the poor at least—­had to choose, even in the daytime, between darkness and warmth; for when they let in the light, they let in the weather.

Looking through the chinks in the shutters, Etienne gazed inside.

It was the farmhouse occupied by a former lord, Elfwyn of Aescendune, during the Danish invasions, as recorded in a former Chronicle, and was larger and more commodious than usual in those days.  There were several smaller houses, or rather huts, around; but if they had inmates, they were all silent—­perhaps asleep, for the hour was late.

Beside a fire, kindled beneath a large open chimney, such as were then in use in the bettermost houses—­for the poor were content with a hole in the roof—­sat a youth of some sixteen years of age, busily attending to a large pot over the fire, from which, from time to time, savoury fumes ascended, the odour of which gladdened even the olfactory organs of our young Norman aristocrat.

Etienne knew him:  it was Eadwin, the son of Wilfred’s old nurse, for whom he had an ancient grudge, which he at once resolved to gratify.

He summoned Ralph and the rest who had escaped the morass—­they were only ten in number, the others had succumbed to the horrors of that fearful night.

Yet even so, the impulses of pride and cruelty were not subdued in the heart of Etienne, son of Hugo.

“The English robbers have left their haunt for a time; doubtless they were the fellows who passed us in the forest, and there is but one boy left in charge, of whom I know something; we will seize him and learn the truth.”