There are ways without number of accepting an involuntary and compulsory situation. Sir Richard chose to embrace it after a lightsome and cheery fashion, believing thus that the open eye for an opportunity of effecting his escape would be thus more effectually disguised and concealed.
"Well, ... so must it be," said he, laughing. "And since, mayhap, we are to travel in the same direction, I shall be all the gainer by thy famous company."
After they had breakfasted, the Renegade Duke signified his desire to escort Sir Richard about the grounds of the encampment.
He found it to be composed of some threescore of tents set in a wide circle around the purple and black pavilion. These, his loquacious guide informed him, but served to give shelter to the leaders, the men-at-arms and archers, of which there were near a thousand, had thatched, rude coverings beneath the trees and shelving rocks. It was a perfect morning, the sun blazing upon the sea out of a cloudless sky. The site of the encampment was matchless in the beauty of its surroundings. To the north an apparently limitless forest started out of a purple haze on the line of the horizon, far above; and, slipping down in terrace beneath terrace of parti-colored foliage, halted abruptly, as though the red moor had forbidden the trees to trespass within its boundaries. Southward, one overlooked the gorse-grown plain, the level monotony of which was broken, at wide intervals, by the sudden uprearing of an isolated brae.
When Sir Richard and the Duke returned from their circuit of the place of the encampment, the purple and black pavilion had been struck, and a cavalcade of fifty horsemen, superbly armed and caparisoned, awaited but the command to move. An equerry led forward the young knight's horse, which neighed with joy upon beholding its master. As to the perfection of its condition, the Renegade Duke had not exaggerated, for, between its burnished trappings, its ebon coat shone with the soft and velvety sheen of the finest satin. As he leapt into the saddle a bugler winded a silvery blast and the company at once set into motion. The horsemen were equally disposed forward of the noble prisoner and to the rear. Upon his right hand rode the Renegade Duke, who had mounted himself upon a gigantic white stallion. To his left rode Lord Bishop Kennedy, to whom the Duke introduced Sir Richard as they began their march.
The Renegade Duke's range of subjects of conversation was limited to the discussion of his wonderful prowess in armed encounters upon the field of battle and within the lists, and of his innumerable conquests in that other and fairer field of the heart's affections. Sir Richard had disliked the fellow from the first, and his feelings toward him were rapidly undergoing a change into something more robust than mere dislike. But to have sought a quarrel with him then would have defeated the purpose that was even then assuming a definite shape within the young knight's mind. Sir Richard despised the Duke not alone because of his manner of speaking, but also for the way he had of twisting his fierce mustachios till they pointed heavenward from each of his round cheeks.
When he could no longer tolerate listening to his idle boasting, Sir Richard turned and addressed himself to Lord Bishop Kennedy, who had spoken no word to the young knight since their first brief interchange of courtesies at the start of their journey.
"Surely," thought Sir Richard, "if Verbosity attends me upon my right hand, Taciturnity doth ride gloomily along at my left," for the worthy Bishop did not even condescend to raise his sharp chin from out of his white tunic whilst delivering himself of a curt negative or affirmative in response to the young knight's conversational advances.
Ahead of where they were riding, a jagged spur of the forest, composed of stunted pines and dense underbrush, swept defiantly down upon the moor. They were forced to describe a wide detour to the southward in order to avoid it and come upon the other side. As they were passing its nethermost point, Sir Richard glanced back to the place of his strange awakening beneath the sumptuous pavilion. He saw a great ship, with snowy sails bellying in the wind, making straight for that point of the coast, and the men, whom they had left behind, were swarming after the manner of an army of busy ants to the sandy beach.
Passing the spur of stunted pines, they skirted the forest in a northwesterly direction till they had arrived upon a well defined road that plunged directly into the dense wood. Up this rocky way the cavalcade slowly defiled. Far above their heads the maze of branches met and intertwined, making it seem as though the company had been swallowed up within the cool mouth of a tremendously lofty green cavern. The sound of the hoof-beats of their horses was smothered in the thick carpet of pine needles underfoot, and the rich, sweet scent of them filled all the air.