that score, and the resistance which they offered to us this evening, will
be sufficient to put a halter round their necks; but from what I have heard
by the letter which the Lord Mayor sent me, there are others higher in rank
concerned in the affair; doubtless we shall find means to make these
ruffians speak."

Accordingly, at the justice's orders, halters were placed round the necks
of the prisoners, the other ends being attached to the saddles, and the
party set off at a pace which taxed to the utmost the strength of the
wounded men. Geoffrey and his party returned in high spirits to Southwark.


On the Monday Walter went over to Richmond, accompanied by the armourers
and by the lads who had been in the boat with him. The nine ruffians,
strongly guarded, were brought up in the justice room. Walter first gave
his evidence, and related how he had overheard a portion of the
conversation, which led him to believe that an attack would be made upon
the boat coming down the river.

"Can you identify either of the prisoners as being the man whom you saw at
the door of the hut?"

"No," Walter said. "When I first saw him I was too far off to make out his
face. When he left the hut it was dark."

"Should you know the other man, the one who was addressed as sir knight, if
you saw him again?"

"I should," Walter replied. He then gave an account of the attack upon the
boat, but said that in the suddenness of the affair and the growing