CHAPTER
I [In Crowden Wood]
II [Strangers at Blancherive]
III [The Knife in the Twilight]
IV [The Jongleur and the Greenwood Men]
V [Hugh Gains a Friend]
VI [The Swart Shipman]
VII [The Sea-Wolves]
VIII [Spears of Destiny]
IX [The Comrades Take the Cross]
X [How Hugh Was Tested]
XI [The Green Gondola]
XII [The Isle of Rabbits]
XIII [In The Power of the Doge]
XIV [The Bargain of the Host]
XV [Hugh's Enemies Strike Again]
XVI [The Imperial City]
XVII [How Hugh Won Knighthood]
XVIII [The Storming of the Walls]
XIX [How the False Alexius Fled]
XX [Treachery]
XXI [How Hugh's Quest Was Ended]
XXII [The Treasure of the Bucoleon]
XXIII [How Bartolommeo Trusted a Strange Jailer]
XXIV [How the Comrades Rode to Blachernae]
XXV [Vengeance]
XXVI [Lords of the World]
[Epilogue]
SPEARS OF DESTINY
CHAPTER I
IN CROWDEN WOOD
"Harrow! On, hounds! On, hounds! Take him, dogs! Out, harrow!"
The aisles of Crowden Wood rang to the clamour of voices and the belling of shaggy hounds. Through the budding foliage of beech and oak and ash the spring sunlight streamed upon the leaf-brown mould that floored a winding ride. Around one end of this leafy tunnel scampered a fox, nose close to the ground, brush held high. His pink tongue dripped over slavering jaws and his little eyes were very bright, but his stride was tireless. One look he cast over his shoulder as he turned the corner—and as he saw the leading hounds leap into view, he stretched his pace until he seemed a red shadow flickering through the golden-greens of sunshine and foliage.
"Harrow! Harrow!"
Two mounted figures swept into the ride on the heels of the galloping hounds. Side by side they rode—a girl in a green doublet and soft deerskin breeches, astride a gallant black mare, and a tall youth, also in forest-green, upon a great grey stallion. Behind them followed a third horseman, a gigantic figure of a man, young, red-faced, intensely serious, above whose shoulder rose the end of a six-foot bow stave.
"The scent is fresh," cried the youth. "Hear them give tongue, Edith."