The fire now blazed, and the faithful serving-man saw that Hugo was still asleep, resting as easily on his couch of reeds as he could have done on the canon's bed. "It is a good lad," said Humphrey. "Were he a De Aldithely he could not be better."
Humphrey lay down no more that night. Restlessly he moved about, now replenishing the fire, and now listening for some hostile sound. But he heard nothing.
It was late in the morning when Hugo awoke. "Surely this must be thy grandsire's mist, Humphrey," he said. "It is heavy enough."
"Yea," answered Humphrey, looking up from the breakfast he was preparing. "It were best not to stir abroad to-day."
And at that moment Richard Wood was saying: "I smell smoke within half a mile of me. Ride we to see what that meaneth." Again, as if to aid him, the wind sprang up so that through the lifting mist one might easily pick his way, and Humphrey had just departed to look after the horses when Richard Wood and his men-at-arms arrived at the camp.
"Yield thee, Josceline De Aldithely!" commanded Richard Wood. "Yield thee in the king's name!" and, dismounting, he laid his hand on the astonished lad's arm.
[Illustration: "Yield Thee in the King's Name">[
A little later Humphrey, returning to the camp, paused in amazement, for he heard voices. He crept around a fringe of reeds and peered, but could not see clearly. He advanced further, still under cover, and then he saw.
"I did dream of eagles," he muttered, "and they did scream above our heads."
He listened, and from what he heard he learned that Hugo had not revealed himself as Hugo, but that he allowed the spy to think him to be Josceline. "Well did my lady trust in him!" exulted Humphrey. "And my lord shall know of this when we be come to France, as we shall come, though all the eagles in the fens do scream above our heads. And now I will away to the Canon Thurstan, and see of what avail is the fish on the circlet of gold."