His mind was full of confused thoughts as he fared through the forest, and how long he had been walking he knew not when suddenly he heard a whistling twang, and an arrow speeding close past his head lodged in a tree not a foot from him.
Turning quick as flash, his eye caught sight of a fleeing figure beyond the nearest trees, and without an instant’s halt Wulf sped after the runner.
He was fleet of foot, and not many moments was it ere he was up with his cowardly foe, and catching him by the shoulder with one strong hand, he whirled the fellow about and stood face to face with Conradt.
The hunchback had thrown away his bow and arrows the better to run, and now put hand to sword; but ere he could draw, Wulf put forth one long leg and tripped him up, so that he lay upon his back on the turf, glaring up at Wulf, whose face glowed with unwonted anger and whose sword’s point was at the breast of the prostrate ill-doer.
“Thou again?” he asked, when he had looked Conradt well over. “And what wouldst have this time? What thou’rt likely to get is a quick shriving,” he added.
There was no reply.
“What wast after?” Wulf persisted.
“Thy life,” was the defiant answer. “To let thy tinker blood out—and to get the ribband ye stole.”
“Softly,” the other said. “That were an ugly word an any one heard it. My life thou’rt not likely to get; as for the ribband, ’tis as much mine as the other, and I am minded to keep both.”
Conradt’s only reply was a muttered curse; but his eyes rolled shiftily, glancing askance adown the woods, as seeking help.