“Lead us, master—­lead us!”

Then, looking upon their wild disorder, Beltane laughed for scorn:—­

“Rats!” quoth he, “O rats—­is it thus ye throng to the slaughter, then?  Were I in sooth Red Pertolepe with but a score at my back I had slain ye all ere sun-up!  Where be your out-posts—­where be your sentinels?  Are ye so eager to kick within a hangman’s noose?”

Now hereupon divers growled or muttered threateningly, while others, yawning, would have turned them back to sleep; but striding among them, Beltane stayed them with voice and hand—­and voice was scornful and hand was heavy:  moreover, beside him stood Roger and Giles, with Walkyn and Eric of the wry neck.

“Fools!” he cried, “for that Pentavalon doth need men, so now must I teach ye other ways.  Fall to your ranks there—­ha! scowl and ye will but use well your ears—­mark me, now.  But two nights ago we burned down my lord Duke’s great castle of Garthlaxton:  think you my lord Duke will not seek vengeance dire upon these our bodies therefore?  Think ye the Red Pertolepe will not be eager for our blood?  But yest’re’en, when I might have slain yon knavish Gurth, I suffered him to go—­and wherefore?  For that Gurth, being at heart a traitor and rogue ingrain, might straightway his him to the Duke at Barham Broom with offers to guide his powers hither.  But when they be come, his chivalry and heavy armed foot here within the green, then will we fire the woods about them and from every point of vantage beset them with our arrows—­”

“Ha!  Bows—­bows!” cried Giles, tossing up his bow-stave and catching it featly—­“Oho! tall brother—­fair lord Duke, here is a sweet and notable counsel.  Ha, bows!  Hey for bows and bills i’ the merry greenwood!”

“So, perceive me,” quoth Beltane, “thus shall the hunters peradventure become the hunted, for, an Duke Ivo come, ’tis like enough he ne’er shall win free of our ring of fire.”  Now from these long and ragged ranks a buzz arose that swelled and swelled to a fierce shout.

“The fire!” they cried.  “Ha, to burn them i’ the fire!”

“But so to do,” quoth Beltane, “rats must become wolves.  Valiant men ye are I know, yet are ye but a poor unordered rabblement, mete for slaughter.  So now will I teach ye, how here within the wild-wood we may withstand Black Ivo and all his powers.  Giles, bring now the book of clean parchment I took from Garthlaxton, together with pens and ink-horn, and it shall be henceforth a record of us every one, our names, our number, and the good or ill we each one do achieve.”

So there and then, while the sun rose high and higher and the mists of dawn thinned and vanished, phantom-like, the record was begun.  Two hundred and twenty and four they mustered, and the name of each and every Giles duly wrote down within the book in right fair and clerkly hand.  Thereafter Beltane numbered them into four companies; over the first company he set Walkyn, over the second Giles, over the third Roger, and over the fourth Eric of the wry neck.  Moreover he caused to be brought all the armour they had won, and ordered that all men should henceforth go armed from head to foot, yet many there were that needs must go short awhile.