heather. The man with the birth-mark, too,
struggled to break away, and Alleyne heard his teeth chatter and felt
his limbs grow limp to his hand. At this sign of coming aid the clerk
held on the tighter, and at last was able to pin his man down and
glanced behind him to see where all the noise was coming from.

Down the slanting road there was riding a big, burly man, clad in a
tunic of purple velvet and driving a great black horse as hard as
it could gallop. He leaned well over its neck as he rode, and made a
heaving with his shoulders at every bound as though he were lifting the
steed instead of it carrying him. In the rapid glance Alleyne saw that
he had white doeskin gloves, a curling white feather in his flat velvet
cap, and a broad gold, embroidered baldric across his bosom. Behind him
rode six others, two and two, clad in sober brown jerkins, with the
long yellow staves of their bows thrusting out from behind their right
shoulders. Down the hill they thundered, over the brook and up to the
scene of the contest.

"Here is one!" said the leader, springing down from his reeking horse,
and seizing the white rogue by the edge of his jerkin. "This is one of
them. I know him by that devil's touch upon his brow. Where are your
cords, Peterkin? So! Bind him hand and foot. His last hour has come. And
you, young man, who may you be?"

"I am a clerk, sir, travelling from Beaulieu."

"A clerk!" cried the other. "Art from Oxenford or from Cambridge? Hast
thou a letter from the chancellor of thy college giving thee a permit
to beg? Let me see thy letter." He had a stern, square face, with bushy
side whiskers and a very questioning eye.

"I am from Beaulieu Abbey, and I have no need to beg," said Alleyne, who
was all of a tremble now that the ruffle was over.

"The better for thee," the other answered. "Dost know who I am?"

"No, sir, I do not."

"I am the law!"--nodding his head solemnly. "I am the law of England
and the mouthpiece of his most gracious and royal majesty, Edward the
Third."

Alleyne louted low to the King's representative. "Truly you came in good
time, honored sir," said he. "A moment later and they would have slain
me."

"But there should be another one," cried the man in the purple coat.
"There should be a black man. A shipman with St. Anthony's fire, and a
black man who had served him as cook--those are the pair that we are in
chase of."

"The black man fled over to that side," said Alleyne, poi