as the guns slackened, ventured forth to learn the news, and who now,
filling the churchyard of Hadley, strove hard to catch a peep of Henry
the saint, or of Bungey the sorcerer. Mingled with these gleamed the
robes of the tymbesteres, pressing nearer and nearer to the barriers,
as wolves, in the instinct of blood, come nearer and nearer round the
circling watch-fire of some northern travellers. At this time the
friar, turning to one of the guards who stood near him, said, "The
mists are needed no more now; King Edward hath got the day, eh?"

"Certes, great master," quoth the guard, "nothing now lacks to the
king's triumph except the death of the earl."

"Infamous nigromancer, hear that!" cried Bungey to Adam. "What now
avail thy bombards and thy talisman! Hark yet--tell me the secret of
the last,--of the damnable engine under my feet, and I may spare thy
life."

Adam shrugged his shoulders in impatient disdain. "Unless I gave thee
my science, my secret were profitless to thee. Villain and numskull,
do thy worst."

The friar made a sign to a soldier who stood behind Adam, and the
soldier silently drew the end of the rope which girded the scholar's
neck round a bough of the leafless tree. "Hold!" whispered the friar,
"not till I give the word. The earl may recover himself yet," he
added to himself; and therewith he began once more to vociferate his
incantations. Meanwhile the eyes of Sibyll had turned for a moment
from her father; for the burst of sunshine, lighting up the valley
below, had suddenly given to her eyes, in the distance, the gable-ends
of the old farmhouse, with the wintry orchard,--no longer, alas!