“Going beyond known facts,” muttered Matthew, “yet one must sometimes make a leap in the dark. They shake their heads and deny. What next? Friend Stephen presses his demand, and all four knaves wax violent in vowing lies; and Dick is puffing and blowing with desire to break heads. They have the beast, but where?”
His quick eyes, darting hither and thither, had soon answered this question. One or two of the men had bundles on their backs, and a boy carried something of the same sort, though smaller. Matthew noticed that, at a word from one of the men, this boy slipped out of the group, and, avoiding the side where Dick and his neighbour Hob were mounting guard, passed round near Matthew himself. In an absolutely unexpected moment he found himself caught by the arm, and though he fought and kicked he was held in a vice. The men turned upon Matthew with threatening gestures, and Dick, in high delight, flourished his quarterstaff, and pressed up to the defence with one eye on the bear, who in a free fight might be held to represent an unknown quantity.
Finding they had fallen into powerful hands the Italians confined themselves to pouring out violent ejaculations, while Hugh flung himself upon the bundle. His fingers trembled so much with excitement that he could hardly drag out the wooden skewers which served to keep it together, but in a minute or two it was unrolled, and the terrified monkey sprang out. He had made one frightened leap already when Hugh’s call checked him, and the next moment, with a cry of delight, almost human in its intensity, he ran to the boy, and clambering on his shoulder gave the most unmistakable signs of pleasure.
“The monkey is his own jury,” said Matthew, sententiously. “Tried and found guilty, my masters.”
The Italians, however, had no intention of giving up their booty without a struggle, and they called upon several jongleurs, who had crowded round, to assist them. One went so far as to seize the monkey, whereupon Dick’s cudgel, describing a circle in the air, came down upon the head of the assailant with such force that he dropped like a stone, and Hob following up with another blow scarcely less formidable, it seemed likely that here would be a battle royal. Two men fell upon Matthew, who would have been in evil case had not Dick done as much for him as he had for the monkey; and Stephen Bassett was set upon with a vigour which soon left him breathless, although Hugh, clasping Agrippa with one hand, with the other arm laid about him to such excellent purpose that he hoped to save his father from hurt till Dick could come to the rescue.
But might has been often found to get the upper hand of right, and both Stephen and Dick had fallen into the common English error of underrating their opponents. A good many of the foreigners had closed round with the desire to help their own body, and without knowing anything of the quarrel; and the English, who would have stoutly taken the opposite side, could only see that some quarrel was going on, and supposed the strangers to be fighting among themselves. Dick had done prodigies of valour, and dealt furious blows with his quarterstaff, but he was hampered by numbers who clung to his arm, and by the charge of protecting his cousin, and he was reluctantly framing a call for rescue when a party of horsemen rode into the very thick of the struggling mass, and scattered it in all directions.