passed, and the sun was sloping westward, when a confused sound below
called Sibyll's gaze to the lattice, which looked over the balustrade
of the staircase into the vast yard. She saw several armed men, their
harness hewed and battered, quaffing ale or wine in haste, and heard
one of them say to the landlord,--

"All is lost! Sir Geoffrey Gates still holds out, but it is butcher
work. The troops of Lord Hastings gather round him as a net round the
fish!"

Hastings!--that name!--he was at hand! he was near! they would be
saved! Sibyll's heart beat loudly.

"And the captain?" asked Porpustone.

"Alive, when I last saw him; but we must be off. In another hour all
will be hurry and skurry, flight and chase." At this moment from one
of the barns there emerged, one by one, the female vultures of the
battle. The tymbesteres, who had tramped all night to the spot, had
slept off their fatigue during the day, and appeared on the scene as
the neighbouring strife waxed low, and the dead and dying began to
cumber the gory ground. Graul Skellet, tossing up her timbrel, darted
to the fugitives and grinned a ghastly grin when she heard the news,--
for the tymbesteres were all loyal to a king who loved women, and who
had a wink and a jest for every tramping wench! The troopers tarried
not, however, for further converse, but, having satisfied their
thirst, hurried and clattered from the yard. At the sight of the
ominous tymbesteres Sibyll had drawn back, without daring to close the
lattice she had opened; and the women, seating themselves on a bench,
began sleeking their long hair and smoothing their garments from the