ed cannot hold their own against the mailed
horsemen."

"To whom then is the victory?" asked Nigel.

"To him who can mix his horse and foot, using each to strengthen the
other. Apart they are weak. Together they are strong. The archer who
can weaken the enemy's line, the horseman who can break it when it is
weakened, as was done at Falkirk and Duplin, there is the secret of our
strength. Now touching this same battle of Falkirk, I pray you for one
instant to give it your attention."

With his whip he began to trace a plan of the Scottish battle upon the
dust, and Nigel with knitted brows was trying hard to muster his small
stock of brains and to profit by the lecture, when their conversation
was interrupted by a strange new arrival.

It was a very stout little man, wheezy and purple with haste, who
scudded down the rampart as if he were blown by the wind, his grizzled
hair flying and his long black gown floating behind him. He was clad in
the dress of a respectable citizen, a black jerkin trimmed with sable, a
black-velvet beaver hat and a white feather. At the sight of Chandos
he gave a cry of joy and quickened his pace so that when he did at last
reach him he could only stand gasping and waving his hands.

"Give yourself time, good Master Wintersole, give yourself time!" said
Chandos in a soothing voice.

"The papers!" gasped the little man. "Oh, my Lord Chandos, the papers--"

"What of the papers, my worthy sir?"

"I swear by our good patron Saint Leonard, it is no fault of mine! I
had locked them in my coffer. But the lock was forced and the coffer
rifled."

A shadow of anger passed over the soldier's keen face.

"How now, Master Mayor? Pull your wits together and do not stand there
babbling like a three-year child. Do you say that some one hath taken
the papers?"

"It is sooth, fair sir! Thrice I have been Mayor of the town, and
fifteen years burgess and jurat, but never once has any public matter
gone awry through me. Only last month there came an order from Windsor
on a Tuesday for a Friday banquet, a thousand soles, four thousand
plaice, two thousand mackerel, five hundred crabs, a thousand lobsters,
five thousand whiting--"

"I doubt not, Master Mayor, that you are an excellent fishmonger; but
the matter concerns the papers I gave into your keeping. Where are
they?"

"Taken, fair sir--gone!"

"And who hath dared to take them?"

"Alas! I know not. It was but for as long as you would say an an