“Let us run for a bit, Albert, to warm our blood.
Another quarter of a mile and we shall be challenged
by our sentries.”
A NOBLE GIFT
The pace at which the party started soon slackened,
for neither Albert nor Hal Carter could maintain it.
However, it was not long before they heard the sentry
challenge:
“Who go there?”
“Sir Albert De Courcy and Sir Edgar Ormskirk
escaped from Ypres,” Edgar answered.
“Stand where you are till I call the sergeant,”
the man said, and shouted “Sergeant!”
at the top of his voice. In five minutes a sergeant
and two men-at-arms came up.
“Hurry, sergeant, I pray you,” Edgar said.
“We have swum three ditches, and my companions,
being weakened by their wounds, are well-nigh perished.”
“Come on,” the sergeant said, “it
is clear at any rate that you are Englishmen.”
He had brought a torch with him, and as they came up
looked at them narrowly, then he saluted. “I
know you, Sir Edgar, disguised as you are. I
was fighting behind you on the wall five weeks since,
and had it not been for the strength of your arm,
I should have returned no more to England.”
“How is Sir Hugh Calverley?” Edgar asked,
as they hurried towards the camp.
“His wounds are mending fast,” the sergeant
said, “and he went out of his tent to-day for
the first time. I saw him myself.”
A quarter of an hour’s walking brought them
to the tent occupied by Sir Hugh and his followers.
A light was still burning there, and they heard voices
within.
“May we enter?” Edgar said, as he slightly
opened the flap of the tent.
“Surely, that must be the voice of Sir Edgar
Ormskirk!” Sir Hugh exclaimed.
“It is I, sure enough, and with me is Sir Albert
De Courcy and my brave man-at-arms.”
As he spoke he stepped into the tent. Two knights
were there, and they and Sir Hugh advanced with outstretched
hands to meet the new-comers.
“Welcome back, welcome back!” Sir Hugh
exclaimed, in a tone of emotion. “My brave
knights, I and my two comrades here have to thank you
for our lives, for, although in truth I know naught
about it, I have heard from Sir Thomas Vokes and Sir
Tristram Montford how you brought the band to our
assistance, and how you kept the enemy at bay, while
this good fellow of yours bore me down the ladder
on his shoulder; while from those who escaped afterwards
we heard how you both, with but two or three others,
kept the foe back, and gave time for the rest to jump
from the walls or slide down the ladders. But
your faces are blue, and your teeth chattering!”
“We have had to swim three ditches, and the
ice having formed pretty thickly, it was no child’s
work.”
