It was too much. The remaining robbers would have fled if they could, but they were between two fires.
"O Richard!" murmured Lady Maud. "Thou art not dead?"
His fine dark eyes opened, just then, and a smile came faintly upon his lips as he replied:
"Only stunned, mother. The caitiff's club banged my shield down upon my head, but my steel cap bore it well, else my neck were broken. Did he go down?"
"He lieth among the ruck," she said. "But oh, thank God! The archers of Longwood have come! The fight is won!"
It was won, indeed; for neither the archers nor the Wartmont men were showing any mercy to the staggering, bewildered remnants of the outlaw band which had been such a terror to the Welsh border, and was to other counties almost as far inland as was Warwick itself. Never more would any peaceful hamlet or lonely tower be left in ruins to tell of the ruthless barbarity of the wolves of Devon.
Why they were so called, none knew; but it might be because that fair county had at one time suffered most from their marauding, or because fierce Clod the Club and some of his wild followers came from Lee on the Devon shore.
"Bloody work, my young Lord of Wartmont! Bloody work, my lady!"
"Thank God for thee, Guy the Bow!" she responded. "Alas, my neighbors! But who cometh there? My son, yonder is the flag of Cornwall, and none may carry it but the prince himself. All ye stand fast, but those who care for the hurt ones."
These, indeed, were many, for the women and children were pouring down from the castle. With weeping and with wailing they were searching for their own among the dead and the wounded. But even the mourners stood almost still for a moment, as a knightly cavalcade came thundering up the street.