Hugo was silent while the complacent Humphrey jogged on ahead of him.
What the serving-man had said was in large measure true. And he thought
with a swelling heart that it was not so easy, after all, to personate
Josceline when that personating cost him Fleetfoot.

But no less a person than William Lorimer had discovered that Fleetfoot
had been left behind. William was fond of both the dog and his master;
so now, when Fleetfoot made his appeal to William, the man-at-arms at
once responded. He snapped the chain that bound him, and leading him by
the collar to the postern gate opened it and let down the bridge. "Why,
what would become of thee, Fleetfoot," he said, "when that which is to
come to the castle hath come?" Then while the great deerhound looked up
expectantly into his face he added as he pointed to the place where
Hugo and Humphrey had entered the wood, "After thy master, Fleetfoot!
Seek him!"

The deerhound is a dog of marvellous swiftness, and, like an arrow from
the bow, Fleetfoot shot across the open space and gained the wood.
William Lorimer looked after him. "If thy other commands be no better
obeyed, Humphrey, than this which left Fleetfoot behind, I fear thou
wilt have cause to lose a part of thy self-satisfaction," he said. Then
he drew up the bridge and shut the postern gate.

Hugo had taken the loss of Fleetfoot so quietly that Humphrey with
still greater confidence now changed the course slightly, and went down
to the river-bank at a point which was half ford and half deep water.
But at this Hugo was not so obedient.

"What doest thou, Humphrey?" he demanded. "Was not our course marked
out toward Selby? Why wouldst thou cross the river here? We must be