Yet I will not deny that at the
intaking of a town it is well to have good store of bombards. I
am told that at Calais they made dints in the wall that a man
might put his head into. But surely, comrades, some one who is
grievously hurt hath passed along this road before us."
All along the woodland track there did indeed run a scattered
straggling trail of blood-marks, sometimes in single drops, and
in other places in broad, ruddy gouts, smudged over the dead
leaves or crimsoning the white flint stones.
"It must be a stricken deer," said John.
"Nay, I am woodman enough to see that no deer hath passed this
way this morning; and yet the blood is fresh. But hark to the
sound!"
They stood listening all three with sidelong heads. Through the
silence of the great forest there came a swishing, whistling
sound, mingled with the most dolorous groans, and the voice of a
man raised in a high quavering kind of song. The comrades
hurried onwards eagerly, and topping the brow of a small rising
they saw upon the other side the source from which these strange
noises arose.
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