."

Hugh walked toward Acour, taking no heed. Then suddenly Sir John lifted
his sword and smote with all his strength. The blow caught Hugh on
the skull and down he fell, his mail clattering on the stones, and lay
still. With a whine of rage, Grey Dick leapt at Clavering, drawing from
his side the archer's axe he always wore. But old Sir Andrew caught and
held him in his arms.

"Vengeance is God's, not ours," he said. "Look!"

As he spoke Sir John began to sway to and fro. He let fall his murdering
sword, he pressed his hands upon his heart, he threw them high. Then
suddenly his knees gave beneath him; he sank to the floor a huddled heap
and sat there, resting against the altar rail over which his head hung
backward, open mouthed and eyed.

The last light of the sky went out, only that of the tapers remained.
Eve, awake at last, sent up shriek after shriek; Sir Andrew bending over
the two fallen men, the murderer and the murdered, began to shrive them
swiftly ere the last beat of life should have left their pulses. His
father, brothers, and Grey Dick clustered round Hugh and lifted him. The
fox-faced priest, Nicholas, whispered quick words into the ears of Acour
and his knights. Acour nodded and took a step toward Eve, who just then
fell swooning and was grasped by Grey Dick with his left hand, for in
his right he still held the axe.

"No, no," hissed Nicholas, dragging Sir Edmund back, "life is more than
any woman." Then some one overset the tapers, so that the place was
plunged in gloom, and through it none saw Acour and his train creep out
by the chancel door and hurry to their horses, which waited saddled in
the inner yard.

The frightened congregation fled from the nave with white faces, each
seeking his own place, or any other that was far from Blythburgh Manor.
For did not their dead master's guilt cling to them, and would they not
also be held guilty of the murder of the King's officer, and swing for
it from the gallows? So it came about that when at last lights were
brought Hugh's people found themselves alone.

"The Frenchmen have fled!" cried Grey Dick. "Follow me, men," and with
most of them he ran out and began to search the manor, till at length
they found a woman who told them that thirty minutes gone Acour and all
his following had ridden through the back gates and vanished at full
gallop into the darkness of the woods.

With these tidings, Dick returned to the chapel.

"Master de Cressi," sai