“Ay, Sir Knight, or anywhere away from these Christians. Indeed, at Avignon I have a brother who perchance will protect us.”
“Then mount my horse,” said Hugh. “Dick and David, draw those two youngsters from the tubs and set them on your beasts; we can walk.”
So the children, two comely little girls of eight and six years of age, or thereabout, were dragged out of their dreadful prisons and lifted to the saddle. The wretched widow, running to the bonfire, snatched from it her husband’s burnt-off hand and hid it in the bosom of her filthy robe. Then she took some of the white ashes and threw them toward that city, muttering curses as she did so.
“What do you?” asked Hugh curiously.
“I pray, sir, to Jehovah, the God of the Jews, that for every grain of these ashes He may take a life in payment for that of my murdered husband, and I think that He will listen.”
“Like enough,” answered Hugh, crossing himself, “but, woman, can you wonder that we Christians hold you sorcerers when we hear such prayers from your lips?”
She turned with a tragic motion, and, pointing to the bones of her husband smouldering in the fire, answered:
“And can you wonder, sir, that we wretched creatures utter such prayers when you, our masters, do such deeds as this?”
“No,” answered Hugh, “I cannot. Let us be going from this shambles.”
So they went, a melancholy procession if ever there one was seen upon this earth. As the three Englishmen marched behind the horses with their weeping burdens Grey Dick reflected aloud after his fashion.