"Nay—I have killed no one," cried the giant, struggling hopelessly and desperately. "Take my bags an you will; I was but bearing them to my master."
"Pretty goods to be carrying, indeed," said a voice, as someone turned one bag upside down. On to the hard wet stones rolled a number of things collected by this industrious outlaw—pockets, daggers, purses, knives, pieces of gold, and pennies of silver, a motley company of valuables.
"They are my master's," panted Little John, furiously. "Let them be."
"See what he hath in the other sack," cried another. "He seemeth to have robbed our butchers also." The sack was opened, and the contents laid bare.
A sudden silence fell upon the crowd, a silence of horror and hate. Then a thousand tongues spoke at once, and Little John, frozen cold with loathing, saw under the flickering lamps a dreadful thing.
Out of the second sack had fallen the limbless trunk of a dead man, cold and appalling even in this uncertain light. A head, severed through the jugular arteries, rolled at his feet, grinning and ghastly.
"'Tis Master Fitzwalter," whispered one, in a lull. "Dead and dishonored——"
The clamor became deafening, and Little John felt his senses failing fast. He was beaten and struck at by them all; they tore at him, and cursed him.
Their blows and their rage were as nothing beside the thought of that awful thing upon the ground. The crowd and the lamps reeled and swam before the outlaw's eyes and became blurred.
But the grim vision of that dreadful body became plainer and plainer to him. It assumed terrible proportions, shutting out all else.