Full long Beltane knelt, absorbed in prayer, and as he prayed, he wept. So long knelt he thus, that at last cometh Roger, treading soft and reverently, and touched him.
"Master!" he whispered.
Then Beltane arose as one that dreams and stood a while looking down upon that pale and placid face, on whose silent lips the wondrous smile still lingered. But of a sudden, Roger's fingers grasped his arm.
"Master!" he whispered again. Thereon Beltane turned and thus he saw that Roger looked neither on him nor on the dead and that he pointed with shaking finger. Now, glancing whither he pointed, Beltane beheld, high on the bank above them, a mounted knight armed cap-à-pie, who stared down at them through closed visor—a fierce and war-like figure looming gigantic athwart the splendour of the sinking moon. And even as they stared in wonder, a broad shield flashed, and knight and horse were gone.
CHAPTER LIV
HOW BELTANE FOUGHT WITH A DOUGHTY STRANGER
"Lord!" quoth Roger, wiping sweat from him, "yonder certes was Hob-gob! Forsooth ne'er saw I night the like o' this! How think ye of yon devilish things? Here was it one moment, and lo! in the twinkle of an eye it is not. How think ye, master?"
"I do think 'twas some roving knight."
"Nay but, lord—how shall honest flesh and blood go a-vanishing away into thin air whiles a man but blinketh an eye?"
"The ground hath sudden slope thereabouts, belike."