'Is there no hope of recovering my litter?' I asked, adding, 'I am going all the way to Sion House, near London, where the Duke of Northumberland's daughter-in-law awaits me.'
'The litter is lost to you,' was the startling answer. 'If we wait here for its return, or pursue those runaway horses, we shall be lost too. Madam,' the knight bent his head to speak softly in my ear, 'I will not hide it from you. These are fearful times for a lady to be travelling alone with so small a retinue. Lawless men, such as those that have just been routed, might carry you off where your friends would never hear of you again——'
'Why frighten us?' I interrupted, but had no time to say more, for the noise of brawling again broke upon my ear.
The knight turned to his men, saying, 'They are coming. They are many, we are few. We must ride back the way we came, across the fields. Take up the lady's men and woman.'
And with that he lifted me hastily from the ground, and, placing me upon his own horse, vaulted lightly into the saddle behind me.
'Hold fast, madam,' he said in my ear. 'Put your arms round my neck; so. That is it. Now, Sultan, good horse, gallop thy fastest!'
Whinnying low, the horse tore off across the fallow fields, and away we went like the wind, but I did not know even so much as the name of the valiant knight to whom I was clinging as for life.
CHAPTER III
Hiding from the Enemy
I had been carried off in such haste as left me no time to look back and see if my servants were equally well mounted, and for some time all I could do was to cling to my cavalier. I felt his heart beating as I did so and his warm breath fanning my cheeks. Moments seemed hours as they passed.