"He made a circuit to get to his own side of the plain once more, and only a while back was about to make a sally; but the Earl sent proposals for a truce, and these were accepted: for indeed what could even so brave a Prince do, with a band of men exhausted by fighting and marching, and dispirited to the verge of despair by the knowledge that the cause was lost?"
"Hast thou seen aught of Hugh?" asked Leofric; but Jack shook his head. He had had his hands full in helping first his own wounded comrade, and afterwards those who lay stretched upon the field of victory. He had been working and toiling from dawn till now—marching, fighting, and carrying in the wounded. He had had no thoughts to spare for any but his own side.
A shout of laughter, and the tramp of many feet, announced that something fresh had happened. There was a great tumult of sound, and Jack darted out to see what was happening.
He came back with his face bubbling over with mirth.
"They are bringing in Richard, treacherous Richard, the King of the Romans," he cried—"he who, in his letter but the other day, called himself 'always august,' They are calling him a bad miller, and twitting him with his august windmill! Oh, thou shouldest see his face! He looks like a dozen thunder-clouds all rolled into one!"
A great burst of cheering from some place hard by told that the prisoner had been brought to Earl Simon's tent; and with the failure of the light came the knowledge that the battle was fought and won. The field of Lewes had decided the fate of the country for the present. The Barons had achieved an undoubted victory.
CHAPTER XXIV.
AFTER THE BATTLE.
"Sitteth all still, and hearkeneth to me:
The King of Alemagne, by my loyalty,
Thirty thousand pounds asked he,
For to make the peace in the countree,
And so he did more.
Richard, though thou be ever trichard [treacherous],
Tricken [trick us] shalt thou never more.