Lord Dunseveric bowed.
“Thank you, Neal,” he said, quietly, “we yield to you.”
A bullet struck the ground at their feet, and then another. The soldiers behind the demesne wall were firing at them. The boy who had saved Neal from the pike thrust gave a sudden cry and sank on the ground.
“I think,” said Lord Dunseveric, “you had better pick up that boy and walk in front of us. It is possible that our men will cease firing when they see that Maurice and I are between them and you.”
Neal stooped and raised the boy.
“I can walk fine,” he said, “if you let me put my arm round your neck.”
There was a pause in the fighting. The English infantry drawn up on the terrace behind the wall would not fire on Lord Dunseveric and his son. Hope’s musketeers in the churchyard watched in silence while the little procession approached them. Neal, with his arm round the wounded boy, walked first. Lord Dunseveric, following, drew his snuff-box from his pocket, tapped it, and took a pinch, drawing the powder into his nostrils with deliberate enjoyment.
“It seems, Maurice,” he said, with a slight smile, “that we are people of considerable importance. Two armies are looking on while we march to captivity, and yet we do not appear in a very heroic light. We are the prisoners of one badly-armed young man and a wounded boy.”
“Neal saved us,” said Maurice.
“Yes,” said Lord Dunseveric, “that is, no doubt, the way to look at it. We should certainly have been piked if it had not been for Neal.”