“Coward!” cried the man, springing forward from among his companions.  “You are the coward.  I will be no party to such a cold-blooded murder as this,” and his bosom swelled with indignation as he turned round to his companions and pointed to where Manners lay.

“Who says I am a coward?  Who dares to speak such insolence?” demanded De la Zouch, trembling all over with rage.

“I do, and I repeat it,” replied the other, bending over the prostrate form of his late antagonist.

For a moment Sir Henry stood in speechless amazement at such unlooked-for presumption, and then suddenly raising his weapon, he brought it down upon his offending servant, and stretched him beside the object of his sympathy.

“Who says I am a coward now?” he fiercely asked, turning upon the abashed companions of the latest victim of his temper.

Whatever the others thought, they wisely held their peace, and, terrified and cowed by the lesson their lord had taught them, they silently raised the two inanimate bodies, and, according to their instructions, proceeded to rejoin Dorothy and her guard ere they began their journey back to the castle at Ashby.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXII.

On A false scent.

  I can counterfeit the deep tragedian! 
  Speak, and look back, and pry on every side,
  Tremble, and start at wagging of a straw. 
  Pretending deep suspicion; ghastly looks
  Are at my service like enforced smiles,
  And both are ready in their offices,
  At any time to grace my stratagems.

  Shakespeare.

Dorothy Vernon had impatiently awaited the conclusion of the contest, and the prodigious amount of faith she had in her lover’s capabilities, coupled with what she had already witnessed of the fight, led her to hope that he would yet return victorious to deliver her.

She had ceased to struggle ere the victors returned, partly because of the hope with which she had deluded herself, and partly because her attempts had only wearied her without bringing her any nearer to success; but at the first glimpse of the slowly approaching company she broke away from her too trustful captors and fled precipitately towards the advancing party.

“Let me go to him; is he hurt?” she cried, as one of her guardians overtook her and pulled her to a standstill, and starting forward again she left a fragment of her dress between the man’s fingers, and hastened on again until she reached her lover’s side.

“Speak, John,” she exclaimed in piteous tones, as she gazed upon his pallid face and livid form.  “Speak just one word to me.”

But Manners did not speak.  Thoroughly stunned by the blows he had received, he lay quite unconscious in the position in which he had been placed, and he was so weakened by the loss of blood from his wounds that his immediate return to consciousness was exceedingly problematical.  He lay deaf, and apparently dead, whilst Dorothy pleaded in vain for a word from his lips.