rang again to the shouts and calls of the brothers, voice answering to
voice till it seemed as though a score of men were approaching. The
brothers, moreover, knew and used the sharp fierce call employed by the
hunters of the wolves in summoning their dogs to their aid -- a call
that they knew would be heard and heeded by the savage brutes, who would
well know what it meant. And in effect the artifice was perfectly
successful; for ere they had gained the spot upon which the struggle had
taken place, they heard the breaking up of the wolf party, as the
frightened beasts dashed headlong through the coverts, whilst their
howling and barking died away in the distance, and a great silence
succeeded.

"Thank Heaven for a timely rescue!" they heard a voice say in the
English tongue; "for by my troth, good Malcolm, I had thought that thou
and I would not live to tell this tale to others. But where are our good
friends and rescuers? Verily, I have seen nothing, yet there must have
been a good dozen or more. Light thy lantern, an thou canst, and let us
look well round us, for by the mass I shall soon think we have been
helped by the spirits of the forest."

"Nay, fair sir, but only by two travellers," said Gaston, advancing from
the shadow of the giant trees, his brother closely following him. "We
are ourselves benighted in this forest, having by some mischance lost
our road to Castres, which we hoped to have sighted ere now. Hearing the
struggle, and the shouts with which you doubtless tried to scare off the
brutes, we came to see if we might not aid, and being well acquainted
with the calls of the hunters of the wolves, succeeded beyond our hopes.
I trust the cowardly and treacherous beasts have done you no injury?"

"By my troth, it is strange to hear my native tongue in these parts, and