Now it came to pass, when the drum-beats had faded into the silence of the moor, that Hugh discovered a shepherd’s smock and wide-brimmed hat hanging on a peg, and abandoned his uniform for these. Thus clad, he fled from the hut in the dead of night and made his escape across the moor. Because of the triumph of the enemy, he dared not return into his own land, but fled to a kingdom in the west.
Presently he came upon a village lying at the foot of a hill crowned with a ruined tower, and there took service in the harvest fields.
As for Jocelyn and his comrades, they were marched into the enemy’s country, thrust into dungeons, and held for ransom, one and all.
Now it fortuned that one noontide, as Hugh rested with fellow laborers in the greenwood shade, he asked them of the ruined castle on the hill.
“Yon castle,” said a big harvester with an important air, “was built centuries ago by an old knight who was known throughout the land as a magician. A treasure lies hid within, but none dare seek it; for those who do—”
“Never come back!” croaked another harvester, a little lean man with thin legs and large red ears.
“Once there was a brave adventurer who went to seek the treasure,” said a man with long, uncut, locks and a pointed nose. “We watched him climb the hill, we saw him enter the castle, and all at once we heard—”
“A terrible yell!” said the big harvester and the red-eared man together.
“And he never came back,” said somebody else, shaking his head.