"Alone!" growled Walkyn, clutching his axe.
"An death must come, better one should die than four," said Beltane, "howbeit I am minded to seek out Pertolepe this day."
"Then do I come also, master, since thy man am I."
"I, too," nodded Walkyn, "come death and welcome, so I but stand face to face with Pertolepe."
"Alack!" sighed Giles, "so needs must I come also, since I have twelve shafts yet unsped," and he swallowed the morsel of venison with mighty relish and gusto.
Then laughed Beltane for very gladness, and he looked on each with kindling eye.
"Good friends," quoth he, "as ye say, so let it be, and may God's hand be over us this day."
Now, as he spake with eyes uplift to heaven, he espied a faint, blue mist far away above the soft-stirring tree tops—a distant haze, that rose lazily into the balmy air, thickening ever as he watched.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, fierce-eyed of a sudden and pointing with rigid finger, "whence cometh that smoke, think ye?"
"Why," quoth Roger, frowning, "Wendonmere village lieth yonder!"