As Prosper had predicted, the dogs, coming on by twos and threes, got entangled in the cross-trail. They hesitated over it, circled about it as the first had done, and like him they followed the hotter and fresher scent. One, however, in a mighty hurry, ran clean through it, and singled out his own again. They saw him coming; in his time he saw them. He stopped, threw up his head, and bayed a succession of deep bell-notes at them, enough to wake the dead.
"I must deal with this beast," Prosper said. "Leave me to manage him, and stay you here." He dismounted, ungirt his sword, which he gave to Isoult to hold, then began to run through the wood as if he was afraid. This brought the dog on furiously; in fifty yards he was up with his quarry. Prosper went on running; the dog chose his time, and sprang for his throat. Prosper, who had been waiting for this, ducked at the same minute; his dagger was in his hand. He struck upwards at the dog as he rose, and ripped his belly open. "That was your last jump, my friend," quoth he, "but I hope there are no more of you. It is a game that not always answers."
It was while he was away upon this errand that Isoult thought she saw a tall woman in a black cloak half-hidden behind a tree. The woman, she could have sworn, stood there in the dusk looking fixedly at her; it was too dark to distinguish anything but the white disk of a face and the black mass she made in her cloak, yet there was that about her, some rigid aspect of attention, which frightened the girl. She turned her head for a moment to see Prosper homing, and when she looked again into the trees there was certainly no woman. She thought she must have fancied it all, and dismissed the thought without saying anything to Prosper.
They took up their journey again, safe from dogs for the time. The music had died away in the distance; they knew that if the wolf-pack were caught there would be work enough for more hounds than the Abbey could furnish. Then it grew dark, and Isoult weary and heavy with sleep. She swayed in her saddle.
"Ah," said Prosper, "we will stay here. You shall sleep while I keep watch."
"It is very still, my lord. Wilt thou not let me watch for a little?" she asked.
Prosper laughed. "There are many things a man's wife can do for him, my dear," he said, "but she cannot fight dogs or men. And she cannot sleep with one eye open Eat what you have, and then shut your pair of eyes. You are not afraid for me?"
Isoult looked at him quickly. Then she said—"My lord is—," and stopped confused.
"What is thy lord, my girl?" asked he.
"He is good to his servant," she whispered in her low thrilled voice.