w her dark face, shining
with pride and with pity, stooping over him as he lay. She stretched out
her hand in his dream and touched him on the shoulder. He sprang up and
rubbed his eyes, for fact had woven itself into dream in the strange way
that it does, and some one was indeed leaning over him in the gloom, and
shaking him from his slumbers. But the gentle voice and soft touch of
the Lady Mary had changed suddenly to the harsh accents and rough grip
of Black Simon, the fierce Norfolk man-at-arms.

"Surely you are the Squire Loring," he said, peering close to his face
in the darkness.

"I am he. What then?"

"I have searched through the camp for you, but when I saw the great
horse tethered near these bushes, I thought you would be found hard by.
I would have a word with you."

"Speak on."

"This man Aylward the bowman was my friend, and it is the nature that
God has given me to love my friends even as I hate my foes. He is also
thy servant, and it has seemed to me that you love him also."

"I have good cause so to do."

"Then you and I, Squire Loring, have more reason to strive on his behalf
than any of these others, who think more of taking the castle than of
saving those who are captives within. Do you not see that such a man as
this robber lord would, when all else had failed him, most surely cut
the throats of his prisoners at the last instant before the castle fell,
knowing well that come what might he would have short shrift himself? Is
that not certain?"

"By Saint Paul! I had not thought of it."

"I was with you, hammering at the inner gate," said Simon, "and yet
once when I thought that it was giving way I said in my heart: 'Good-by,
Samkin! I shall never see you more.' This Baron has gall in his
soul, even as I have myself, and do you think that I would give up my
prisoners alive, if I were constrained so to do? No, no; had we won our
way this day it would have been the death-stroke for them all."

"It may be that you are right, Simon," said Nigel, "and the thought of
it should assuage our grief. But if we cannot save them by taking the
castle, then surely they are lost indeed."

"It may be so, or it may not," Simon answered slowly. "It is in my mind
that if the castle were taken very suddenly, and in such a fashion that
they could not foresee it, then perchance we might get the prisoners
before they could do them scathe."

Nigel bent forward eagerly, his hand on the soldier's arm.

"You hav