horses had all at once come out on a hilltop. The sequestered boskage
of the trees had gradually thinned, finally dwarfing into a green
drift of fern and birchen foliage which rose no higher than Black
Darnaway's chest, and through which his rider's laced boots brushed
till the Spanish leather of their gold-embossed frontlets was all
jetted with gouts of dew.

Before him swept horizonwards a great upward drift of solemn pine
trees, the like of which for size he had never seen in all his domain.
Or so, at least, it seemed in that hour of mystery and glamour. For
behind them the evening sky had dulled to a deep and solemn wash of
blood red, across which lay one lonely bar of black cloud, solid as
spilled ink on a monkish page. But under the trees themselves, blazing
with lamps and breathing odours of all grace and daintiness, stood a
lighted pavilion of rose-coloured silk, anchored to the ground with
ropes of sendal of the richest crimson hue.

"Let your horse go free, or tether him to a pine; in either case he
will not wander far," said the girl. "I fear my fellows have gone off
to lay in provisions. We have taken a day or two more on the way than
we had counted on, so that to-night's feast makes an end of our store.
But still there is enough for two. I bid you welcome, Earl William, to
a wanderer's tent. There is much that I would say to you."




CHAPTER IV

THE ROSE-RED PAVILION