“Aye,” he replied shortly, “I believe ’tis not two miles hence. What say’st thou? Shall we reconnoiter?”
“With all my heart,” I answered.
Geoffrey drew his cross-bow cord and placed a bolt in groove. “Lead on, Cedric,” he said in a low voice. “I will follow thee if ’tis to a lion’s den.”
“Come then,” replied Cedric, and moved away through the underwood.
He took a roundabout course to avoid our own sentries and their questions which might be hampering. In five minutes we had passed the line where a little ravine ran between the posts of two of the archers who stood on guard, and were hurrying through the wood, crouching for shelter behind trees and rocks and crossing the more open spaces in stooping runs lest we encounter the arrows of the outlaws. We saw none of our enemies, however, and in an hour were on a deeply wooded hillside amidst huge rocks and brawling streams, half a league and more from our camp fires.
Now we knew from the added caution of our leader that we approached the spot he suspected as the fortress of the outlaws. He crouched and crawled like a serpent, and fully as silently, turning to us from time to time to lay a finger on his lips. At last he paused at the foot of a huge old oak that yet bore most of its leaves, and motioning us not to follow, quickly drew himself up among the branches.
For half a minute he lay on a great limb six yards above the ground and peered obliquely down the hillside at a point where we could see naught but a little stream that issued from between huge ledges. Then his face lighted up of a sudden, and he looked down to us and beckoned us to join him.
This we managed with no more noise than might well be covered by the rustling of the oak leaves, and soon lay on the limb beside Cedric and, peering out betwixt the branches, beheld that to which his finger pointed.
There was a narrow pathway which led up between the ledges; and, at a bend in this where they were concealed from any in the wood below, stood two tall archers in Lincoln green, with axes in their belts, long bows in hand and arrows ready notched. They neither saw nor heard aught of us, and we might have fired on them with goodly chance of slaying one or both; but Cedric now motioned us down to the ground again and soon joined us beneath the tree.
Without a word he retraced his steps through the forest; and by sundown we stood again amongst the ferns in the place where he had first revealed his thought. Then he spoke again: