"You have saved me, Ulric."
"Then it has been measure for measure, for didst thou not save me when in direful dumps? Wilt thou not tarry with us, and be a merry man of the greenwood?"
"Nay, I am pledged to the Crusades."
Ulric was about to reply, when he stopped to listen.
"There is the bay of that hound again: it is one of a breed they have trained to hunt men."
"I know him—it is old Pluto; I have often fed him: he would not hurt me."
"But he would discover thee, nevertheless, and I should not be safe from his fangs."
"Well, we are as swift of foot as they—swifter, I should think. Come, we must jump this brook."
Alas! in jumping, Osric's foot slipped from a stone on which he most unhappily alighted, and he sank on the ground with a momentary thrill of intense pain, which made him quite faint.