eat extent. On the
side by which the party had approached it the ground shelved down
gradually, thickly covered with bushes and undergrowth; but on the
opposite side, as the Gascon boys discovered, the drop was almost sheer,
and though trees grew up to the very edge of the dell, nothing could
grow upon the precipitous sandy sides.

"We have them like rats in a trap," cried Gaston, with sparkling eyes,
as he once more joined the Prince, his brother with him. "They can only
escape up these steep banks thickly overgrown, and we know that there is
but this one path. On the other side it is a sheer drop; a goat could
not find foothold. If we can but take them by surprise, and post an
ambush ready to fall upon escaped stragglers who reach the top, there
will not be one left to tell the tale when the deed is done."

The Prince set his teeth, and the battle light which in after days men
learned to regard with awe shone brightly in his eyes.

"Good," he said briefly: "they shall be served as they have served
others -- taken in their slumber, taken in the midst of their security.
Nay, even so it will not be for them as it has been for their victims,
for doubtless they will have their arms beside them, and will spring
from their slumber to fight like wild wolves trapped; but I trow the
victory will lie with us, and he who fears may stay away. Are we not all
clad in leather, and armed to repulse the savage attacks of the wild
boar of the woods? Thus equipped, need we fear these human wild beasts?
Methinks we shall sweep this day from the face of the earth a fouler
scourge than ever beasts of the forest prove."

"Hist!" whispered Oliver de Brocas cautiously; "methinks I hear a sound
approaching. It is our fellows joining us."

Oliver was right. The trail had now been cautiously followed by the
huntsmen and their young charges, and the next moment the whole twenty
stood at the head of the pathway, together with the Master Huntsman, and
some half-dozen stout fellows all armed with murderous-looking hunting
knives, and betraying by their looks the same eagerness for the fight as
the band of youthful warriors.

It was vain to plead with the Prince to be one of those told off to
remain in ambush in order to intercept and slay any fugitive who might
escape the melee below. No, the young heir of England was resolved to be
foremost in the fray; and the utmost that he would consent to was that
the party should be led down by the Master