“By’r Lady, yes! A splendid caste. Trained to perfection. How handsomely they mount up! Over him now! That stoop and rake, superb. A fig for your chances, master lance-beak. Hey! One of them bound! Now the other. Now down, down. Wunderschön!”
Absorbed in watching the actual conflict, all eyes directed upward, Rupert and his following for a time neither saw nor thought of anything else. No more did they of the hawking party, who, led by the chase, had pushed on through the spinney of firs to be forward at the kill. Only when the bound bird was writhing to free itself, in its last struggles lowering down to earth, did the two parties catch sight of one another. Not so near yet, a wide stretch of the park being between; but near enough for a mutual making out of what they were.
“Soldiers!” exclaimed they of the hawking party.
“Wenches!” the word that came from the lips of the Cavaliers.
“We’re in luck, Prince,” said Lunsford. “You see yonder?”
“Two ladies; yes. Are they the birds we’re in search of, think you?”
“Sure of it, your Highness.”
“Playing with other birds. Ha-ha! Well; suppose we join them at their play?”
“As your Highness commands.”
“Do you know them, Sir Thomas—I mean personally?”