d Roger, pushing forward, "there's nought like the fire for
your devils or demons!"

Quoth the archer:

"_In nomen Dominum_--Holy Saint Giles, 'tis a comely maid!"

"Foul daughter of an accursed dam!" quoth Roger, spitting and drawing a
cross in the dust with his bow-stave.

"With the eyes of an angel!" said Giles, pushing nearer where stood a
maid young and shapely, trembling in the close grasp of one Gurth, a
ragged, red-haired giant, whose glowing eyes stared lustfully upon her
ripe young beauty.

"'Tis Mellent!" cried the fellow. "'Tis the witch's daughter that hath
escaped me thrice by deviltry and witchcraft--"

"Nay--nay," panted the maid 'twixt pallid lips, "nought am I but a poor
maid gathering herbs and simples for my mother. Ah, show pity--"

"Witch!" roared a score of voices, "Witch!"

"Not so, in sooth--in very sooth," she gasped 'twixt sobs of terror,
"nought but a poor maid am I--and the man thrice sought me out and
would have shamed me but that I escaped, for that I am very swift of
foot--"

"She lured me into the bog with devil-fires!" cried Gurth.

"And would thou had'st rotted there!" quoth Giles o' the Bow, edging
nearer. Now hereupon the maid turned and looked at Giles through the
silken curtain of her black and glossy hair, and beholding the entreaty
of that look, the virginal purity of those wide blue eyes, the archer
stood awed and silent, his comely face grew red, grew pale--then, out
flashed his dagger and he crouched to spring on Gurth; but, of a
sudden, Beltane rode in between, at whose coming a shout went up and
thereafter a silence fell. But now at sight of Beltane, the witch-maid
uttered a strange cry, and shrinking beneath his look, crouched upon
her knees and spake in strange, hushed accents.

"Messire," she whispered, "mine eyes do tell me thou art the lord
Beltane!"

"Aye, 'tis so."

"Ah!" she cried, "now glory be and thanks to God that I do see thee
hale and well!" So saying, she shivered and covered her face. Now while
Beltane yet stared, amazed by her saying, the bushes parted near by and
a hooded figure stepped forth silent and soft of foot, at sight of whom
all men gave back a pace, and Roger, trembling, drew a second cross in
the dust with his bow-stave, what time a shout went up:

"Ha!--the Witch--'tis the witch of Hangstone Waste herself!"

Very still she stood, looking round upon them all with eyes that
glittered 'neath the shadow of her hood; and when at la