The other three men-at-arms started at once to
find out if aught could be learned of you. I would fain have gone also,
but the count said that I must bide here in case you should come, and that
there was trouble enough at present without my running the risk of being
discovered. An hour since Robert Picard returned; he had been listening to
the talk of the White Hoods, and had learned that one of their number had
been killed and another sorely wounded by a man who had rescued a prisoner
from the hands of a patrol. He had been chased by a number of them, and
finally threw himself off the bridge into the Seine to avoid falling into
their hands. The general idea was that he was one of the nobles in
disguise, of whom they were in search, and that the capture would have
been a very important one.
"All agreed that he could never have come up alive, for there were bands
of men with torches along both banks, and no sign of him had been
perceived. However, they are searching the river down, and hope to come
upon his body either floating or cast ashore. Robert went out again to try
and gather more news, leaving me well-nigh distraught here."
"The story is true as far as it goes, Tom. I did catch one of them a back-
handed blow just under his helmet as he ran past me, and I doubt not that
it finished him; as to the other, I laid his cheek open. It was a hot
pursuit, but I should have got away had it not been that a strong patrol
came out through the gate at the other end of the bridge just as I was in
the middle, and there was no course but to jump for it.
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