and the champing and stamping of their horses. Behind it all, however, came that low-pitched deep-toned hum, which seemed to come from every quarter and to fill the whole air. In the old monastic days he remembered to have heard such a sound when he had walked out one windy night at Bucklershard, and had listened to the long waves breaking upon the shingly shore. Here, however, was neither wind nor sea, and yet the dull murmur rose ever louder and stronger out of the heart of the rolling sea of vapour. He turned and ran to the camp, shouting an alarm at the top of his voice.
It was but a hundred paces, and yet ere he had crossed it every bowman was ready at his horse's head, and the group of knights were out and listening intently to the ominous sound.
'It is a great body of horse,' said Sir William Felton, 'and they are riding very swiftly hitherwards.'
'Yet they must be from the prince's army,' remarked Sir Richard Causton, 'for they come from the north.'
'Nay,' said the Earl of Angus, 'it is not so certain; for the peasant with whom we spoke last night said that it was rumoured that Don Tello, the Spanish king's brother, had ridden with six thousand chosen men to beat up the prince's camp. It may be that on their backward road they have come this way.'
'By Saint Paul!' cried Sir Nigel, 'I think that it is even as you say, for that same peasant had a sour face and a shifting eye, as one who bore us little goodwill. I doubt not that he has brought these cavaliers upon us.'
'But the mist covers us,' said Sir Simon Burley. 'We have yet time to ride through the further end of the pass.'
'Were we a troop of mountain goats we might do so,' answered Sir William Felton, 'but it is not to be passed by a company of horsemen. If these be indeed Don Tello and his men, then we must bide where we are, and do what we may to make them rue the day that they found us in their path.'
'Well spoken, William!' cried Sir Nigel, in high delight. 'If there be so many as has been said, then there will be
