The eve of the day of his departure, Marquis paid mistress Rees a second visit.  He wanted no healing or help this time, seeming to have come only to offer his respects.  But the knowledge that here was a messenger, dumb and discreet, ready to go between and make no sign, set Richard longing to use him:  what message he did send by him I have already recorded.  Although, however, the dog left them that night, he did not reach Raglan till the second morning after, and must have been roaming the country or paying other visits all that night and the next day as well, with the letter about him, which he had allowed no one to touch.

At last Richard was on his way to Gloucester, mounted on Beelzebub, and much stared at by the inhabitants of every village he passed through.  Apparently, however, there was something about the centaur-compound which prevented their rudeness from going farther.  Beelzebub bore him well, and, though not a comfortable horse to ride, threw the road behind him at a wonderful rate, as often and as long as Richard was able to bear it.  But he found himself stronger after every rest, and by the time he began to draw nigh to Gloucester, he was nearly as well as ever, and in excellent spirits; one painful thought only haunting him—­the fear that he might, mounted on Beelzebub, have to encounter some one on his beloved mare.  He was consoled, however, to think that the brute was less dangerous to one before than one behind him, heels being worse than teeth.

He soon became aware that something decisive had taken place:  either Gloucester had fallen, or Essex had raised the siege, for army there was none, though the signs of a lately upbroken encampment were visible on all sides.  Presently, inquiring at the gate, he learned that, on the near approach of Essex, the besieging army had retired, and that, after a few days’ rest, the general had turned again in the direction of London.  Richard, therefore, having fed Beelzebub and eaten his own dinner, which in his present condition was more necessary than usual to his being of service, mounted his hideous charger once more, and pushed on to get up with the army.

Essex had not taken the direct road to London, but kept to the southward.  That same day he followed him as far as Swindon, and found he was coming up with him rapidly.  Having rested a short night, he reached Hungerford the next morning, which he found in great commotion because of the intelligence that at Newbury, some seven miles distant only, Essex had found his way stopped by the king, and that a battle had been raging ever since the early morning.

Having given his horse a good feed of oats and a draught of ale, Richard mounted again and rode hard for Newbury.  Nor had he rode long before he heard the straggling reports of carbines, looked to the priming of his pistols, and loosened his sword in its sheath.  When he got under the wall of Craven park, the sounds of conflict grew suddenly plainer.  He could distinguish the noise of horses’ hoofs, and now and then the confused cries and shouts of hand-to-hand conflict.  At Spain he was all but in it, for there he met wounded men, retiring slowly or carried by their comrades.  These were of his own part, but he did not stop to ask any questions.  Beelzebub snuffed at the fumes of the gunpowder, and seemed therefrom to derive fresh vigour.