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The fire was soon out, and there was nothing left but to wait for the daylight, and to keep the house in darkness so that no lurking woodlander should have the outline of a window for a mark. Gaillard’s men were very sullen and bitter over the night’s adventure. They had brought in the two dead sentinels, and crowded about them, letting their fury break out in growls for to-morrow’s reckoning. There was no more sleep for Gaillard’s men that night; they squatted round the walls, telling each other what they would do to these people who murdered priests and set fire to houses where the King’s men slept.

The dawn came with a thick mist hanging over the woods, even covering the crowns of the uplands of Bright Ling. Gaillard had made his plans, and in the garden the little spy was drawing a map on the soil with the point of a charred stake. The archers had gone out to scout, but had found nothing but fog and rotting bracken. Gaillard ordered his men to horse, and they were soon on the move through the mist, the drippings from the trees falling on them, and on grass that was grey with dew.