Now I had no time to think of aught, for the men who waited for us heard the voices, and had been told that we had halted; whereon here they came up the road at a hand gallop, in silence.  The two men of the reeve made no more ado, but fled townwards, and after them, swearing, went their leader.  With him the stranger went also, shouting, and we three were left in the road with plunging horses; and then, with a wild half thought that we might meet and cut our way through these knaves ere they knew we were on them, I bethought me of somewhat.  I cried to Erling, and caught Hilda’s bridle, and so leaped from the road to the meadow, and held on straight across it toward the dim outlines of bush and furze clumps which I remembered as being close to our first camp.

I suppose that against the black woodland, with the town rampart beyond us, we were hardly noted, or else those who came made sure that we must try to get back to the town.  At all events along the road they thundered, past where we had stopped, and on after the reeve and his men, who were shouting for the guard to open to them.

So we did not turn to right or left, but rode our hardest across the soft turf, among the ashes of our camp fires, until we were close on the place where Ethelbert had dreamed his dream of Fernlea church under the riverside trees, by the pool where I had bathed and frightened the franklin by my pranks.  That schoolboy jest had flashed into my mind with the memory of the shallows and half-forgotten ford across them.  I thought I might find it again.

“They are after us,” said Erling.  “Whither now?”

Hilda drew her breath in sharply, but made no more sign of fear.

“There is a ford here,” I said, “if I can but find it.  Let the packhorse go, if need be.”

“No need yet; they are at fault,” my comrade answered.

Now I saw the tree which had sheltered the king, and close to it was the ford, and already I scanned the surface of the swirling water for the breaks in its flow which would mark the shallows.  The pursuers had spread abroad somewhat, and were keeping on a line that would lead them past us, for we had turned down to the river somewhat sharply.

Then the river water flashed white suddenly, and I pulled up.  This ford was beset also, for across it, waist deep in the middle, hustled and splashed a line of men whose long spears lifted black lines against the gleam of the pool below.  And I suppose we were seen at the same time against the white water; for there came a yell from behind us, and the hoofs which followed us trampled wildly after us.

At that the men in the water hurried yet more, passing to the Welsh side, and that struck me as unlike the men who would seek to stay us.  And Erling knew what it meant.

“Welshmen,” he said—­“raiders!  After them, and call to them.”

With that I lifted my voice, and spurred my horse at the same time.