throat.

"May it please you, sir," said one of the men, "we have arranged a
litter of boughs, and if you think it good we will bear him back to the
castle."

"It can do him no harm," De Lacy answered. . . "How say you, Giles?"

"With even step it will not hurt him," the squire replied.

Lifting the old Knight carefully they placed him on the litter and
Aymer wrapped his own cloak around him, then nodded to the soldiers to
proceed.

"Go slowly," he ordered, "a jolt may end his life. Watch his heart
closely; if it grow weaker, use the cordial," and he handed them the
flask.

"The fight was not at this place," said Dauvrey after a moment's
examination of the ground; "there are no mingling hoof marks. De Bury
likely fell from the saddle here and the horse kept on to the castle;
his tracks point thither."

"Let us follow the back track," De Lacy exclaimed.

For a score of paces it led them, slowly and laboriously, into the dark
forest, and then vanished, and though they searched in all directions,
no further trace was found. It was a fruitless quest; and at length
the squire persuaded his master to abandon it and await the coming of
the dawn.

Reluctantly De Lacy remounted and they rode slowly back to Pontefract.
The soldiers bearing Sir John de Bury had reached there some time
before, and he lay on the couch in his own room. There was no material
change in his condition, though under the candle-light there was less
of the ghastly pallor of death in the face; and about the ears were
evidences that the blood was beginning to circulate more strongly. The
King's own physician, Antonio Carcea--an Italian--sat beside him with
his hand on the pulse and, ever and anon, bent to listen to the
respiration.

At Be Lacy's entrance he glanced up with a frown which faded when he
saw who it was.

"He will live, Signor," he said in Italian. "He has not yet come to
consciousness, but it is only a matter of a little while."

"Will he speak by daybreak?" De Lacy asked.

"Most likely, Signor."

"Summon me on the instant, and may the Good God aid you."

Going to his quarters and waving Dauvrey aside when he would have
relieved him of his doublet, Aymer threw himself upon the bed. He had
ridden far that day, and with the coming of the sun would begin what
promised to be a labor long and arduous. He could not sleep--and his
closed eyes but made the fancies of his brain more active and the
visions of his love, abducte