Well, an' they come not to us, let us even turn aside to them," said

Hawksley. "The sooner we come to a good fire and a dry bed the better

for my poor lord."

But they had not moved far in the direction of the hillock, before the

men, with one consent, rose suddenly to their feet, and poured a flight

of well-directed arrows on the shipwrecked company.

"Back! back!" cried his lordship. "Beware, in Heaven's name, that ye

reply not."

Nay," cried Greensheve, pulling an arrow from his leather jack. "We are

in no posture to fight, it is certain, being drenching wet, dog-weary,

and three-parts frozen; but, for the love of old England, what aileth

them to shoot thus cruelly on their poor country people in distress?"

They take us to be French pirates," answered Lord Foxham. "In these

most troublesome and degenerate days we cannot keep our own shores of

England; but our old enemies, whom we once chased on sea and land, do

now

range at pleasure, robbing and slaughtering and burning. It is the pity

and reproach of this poor land."

The men upon the hillock lay, closely observing them, while they trailed

upward from the beach and wound inland among desolate sand-hills; for a

mile or so they even hung upon the rear of the march, ready, at a sign,

The Black Arrow