steel-clad horsemen broke forth with couched spears. Charging at full run

down upon them, they overthrew three of the girl's escort before a blow

could be struck in her defense. Her two remaining guardians wheeled to

meet the return attack, and nobly did they acquit themselves, for it took

the entire eleven who were pitted against them to overcome and slay the

two.

In the melee, none had noticed the girl, but presently one of her

assailants, a little, grim, gray man, discovered that she had put spurs to

her palfrey and escaped. Calling to his companions he set out at a rapid

pace in pursuit.

Reckless of the slippery road and the blinding rain, Bertrade de Montfort

urged her mount into a wild run, for she had recognized the arms of Peter

of Colfax on the shields of several of the attacking party.

Nobly, the beautiful Arab bent to her call for speed. The great beasts of

her pursuers, bred in Normandy and Flanders, might have been tethered in

their stalls for all the chance they had of overtaking the flying white

steed that fairly split the gray rain as lightning flies through the

clouds.

But for the fiendish cunning of the little grim, gray man's foresight,

Bertrade de Montfort would have made good her escape that day. As it was,

however, her fleet mount had carried her but two hundred yards ere, in the

midst of the dark wood, she ran full upon a rope stretched across the

roadway between two trees.

As the horse fell, with a terrible lunge, tripped by the stout rope,

Bertrade de Montfort was thrown far before him, where she lay, a little,

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