"Not I," returned Humphrey, easily. "I fear not the spy to-night. If he heareth aught, he will think another hedgehog about to drop upon him. Come thou with me and see."
Hugo obediently rose from the couch of boughs where he had thrown himself, and took the thong of willow from Humphrey's hand to lead Fleetfoot. The serving-man was right. So far as Walter Skinner was concerned they had no more to fear that night. His face was lacerated; and by the time Hugo and Humphrey started from the thicket he had discovered the loss of his horse. It had been better for him if his drinking-horn, from which he now took copious draughts, had been lost also.
"The kind of fortune that is with him, I should not wish to be with me," observed Humphrey, when they had returned safely to the thicket. "I will now to sleep and see what sort of a dream cometh."
Much cheered in spirit, Hugo also lay down to sleep. His courage came back, and he felt that let the journey take as long as it would he was equal to it.
The moon had now risen, and by its light Richard Wood, the other spy, and his borrowed men-at-arms came riding through one of the glades of the forest southward to the vale. Richard Wood had not the overweening vanity of Walter Skinner; he had not taken his borrowed men-at-arms into his confidence concerning the king's plans in order to make it appear that he stood high in counsel; neither had he revealed the name of the lad they sought. The men-at-arms had, therefore, all three remained with him, and were as eager as he on the chase. They were pushing on now to the vale to camp for the night, because they could find there both grass and water. And, in the same spot where Walter Skinner had slept before, they came upon a figure reclining in full sight in the moonlight.
"There lieth one of them," said a man-at-arms, "but I see not the other."
"Thou mayest be sure the other is not far off," observed the second.
"Thou shalt see how quickly I will awake him out of sleep," cried the third, as he spurred his horse toward him and pricked him sharply with the point of his lance.
"Ugh!" grunted the half-drunken Walter Skinner. "But I have had enough of hedgehogs for one night." And he sat up sleepily.
"And is it thou, Walter Skinner?" exclaimed Richard Wood.