"Nay," said Black Roger, "Gui's black knaves being rent in pieces, Giles, we shall be saved the hanging of them--ha! there sounds my lord's horn, and 'tis the rallying-note--come away, Giles!"
Side by side they went, oft stepping across some shapeless horror, until in their going they chanced on one that knelt above a child, small and dead. And beholding the costly fashion of this man's armour, Roger stooped, and wondering, touched his bowed shoulder: "Sir Fidelis," said he, "good young messire, and art thou hurt, forsooth?"
"Hurt?" sighed Sir Fidelis, staring up great-eyed, "hurt? Nay, behold this sweet babe--ah, gentle Christ--so innocent--and slain! A tender babe! And yonder--yonder, what dire sights lie yonder--" and sighing, the youthful knight sank back across Black Roger's arm and so lay speechless and a-swoon.
Quoth Roger, grim-smiling: "What, Giles, here's one that loveth woman's finger-work no more than thou!" Thus saying, he stooped and lifting the young knight in his arms, bore him across the square, stumbling now and then on things dim-seen in the dark, for night was at hand.
So thus it was that the folk of fair Belsaye town, men and women with gnashing teeth and rending hands, made them an end of Tyranny, until with the night, there nothing remained of proud Sir Gui and all his lusty garrison, save shapeless blotches piled amid the gloom--and that which lay, forgotten quite, a cold and pallid thing, befouled with red and trampled mire; a thing of no account henceforth, that stared up with glazed and sightless eyes, where, remote within the sombre firmament of heaven, a great star glowed and trembled.