streaming with blood and water, bruised,
wounded, alone, and unarmed. For all that, he had saved his life for
that bout; and though Joanna remained behind in the power of Sir Daniel,
he neither blamed himself for an accident that it had been beyond his
power to prevent, nor did he augur any fatal consequences to the girl
herself. Sir Daniel was cruel, but he was not likely to be cruel to a
young gentlewoman who had other protectors, willing and able to bring him
to account. It was more probable he would make haste to marry her to
some friend of his own.

"Well," thought Dick, "between then and now I will find me the means to
bring that traitor under; for I think, by the mass, that I be now
absolved from any gratitude or obligation; and when war is open, there is
a fair chance for all."

In the meanwhile, here he was in a sore plight.

For some little way farther he struggled forward through the forest; but
what with the pain of his wounds, the darkness of the night, and the
extreme uneasiness and confusion of his mind, he soon became equally
unable to guide himself or to continue to push through the close
undergrowth, and he was fain at length to sit down and lean his back
against a tree.

When he awoke from something betwixt sleep and swooning, the grey of the
morning had begun to take the place of night. A little chilly breeze was
bustling among the trees, and as he still sat staring before him, only
half awake, he became aware of something dark that swung to and fro among
the branches, some hundred yards in front of him. The progressive
brightening of the day and the return of his own senses at last enabled
him to recognise the object. It was a man hanging from the bough of a
tall oak. His head had fallen forward on his breast; but at every
stronger puff of wind his body span round and round, and his legs and
arms tossed, like some ridiculous plaything.

Dick clambered to his feet, and, staggering and leaning on the
tree-trunks as he went, drew near to this grim object.

The bough was perhaps twenty feet above the ground, and the poor fellow
had been drawn up so high by his executioners that his boots swung clear
above Dick's reach; and as his hood had been drawn over his face, it was
impossible to recognise the man.

Dick looked about him right and left; and at last he perceived that the
other end of the cord had been made fast to the trunk of a little
hawthorn which grew, thick with blossom, under t