on
her lips; then they glided to the door, opened and reclosed it, darted
across the yard, scaring the beasts that slept there; the watch-dog
barked, but drew back, bristling, and showing his fangs, as Red Grisell,
undaunted, pointed her knife, and Graul flung him a red peace-sop of
meat. They launched themselves through the open entrance, gained the
space beyond, and scoured away to the battlefield.

Meanwhile, Sibyll and her father were still under the canopy of heaven,
they had scarcely passed the garden and entered the fields, when they
saw horsemen riding to and fro in all directions. Sir Geoffrey Gates,
the rebel leader, had escaped; the reward of three hundred marks was set
on his head, and the riders were in search of the fugitive. The human
form itself had become a terror to the hunted outcasts; they crept under
a thick hedge till the horsemen had disappeared, and then resumed their
way. They gained the wood; but there again they halted at the sound
of voices, and withdrew themselves under covert of some entangled
and trampled bushes. This time it was but a party of peasants, whom
curiosity had led to see the field of battle, and who were now returning
home. Peasants and soldiers both were human, and therefore to be shunned
by those whom the age itself put out of the pale of law. At last the
party also left the path free; and now it was full night. They pursued
their way, they cleared the wood; before them lay the field of battle;
and a deeper silence seemed to fall over the world! The first stars had
risen, but not yet the moon. The gleam of armour from prostrate bodies,
which it had mailed in vain, reflected the quiet rays; here and there
flickered watchfires, where sentinels were set, but they were scattered
and remote. The outcasts paused and shuddered, but there seemed no
holier way for their feet; and the roof of the farmer's homestead
slept on the opposite side of the field, amidst white orchard blossoms,
whitened still more by the stars. They went on, hand in hand,--the
dead, after all, were less terrible than the living. Sometimes a stern,
upturned face, distorted by the last violent agony, the eyes unclosed
and glazed, encountered them with its stony stare; but the weapon was
powerless in the stiff hand, the menace and the insult came not from
the hueless lips; persecution reposed, at last, in the lap of slaughter.
They had gone midway through the field, when they heard from a spot
where the corpses l