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skirts covered her legs still, with propriety.
"I've seen three rabbits so far, and they all hopped off in the same
direction," she went on.
"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Giles.
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"You'll see, Giles," she answered serenely.
She took the lead and led them on along the top of the crest until they came
to an incline splitting off from it that led them down toward the valley
below. It was by no means a track or trail of any kind, merely a sort of
slanting ledge that headed downward, wide enough for one horse at a time. But
she went down there quite cheerfully, and the three fourteenth-century men
with her naturally followed without the slightest apparent hesitation,
although it looked as if the ledge might pinch out at any moment, or crumble
beneath their horses' feet. Jim, bringing up the rear, would have preferred
not to try to hide his own uncomfortableness with this sort of precarious
descent; but the casually indifferent attitudes of the rest stopped him.
Eventually the ledge brought them to the floor of the valley itself. There
was a certain amount of solid ground outside the area of the rushes; and from
among the tall stems and the club heads of the rushes was the steady murmur of
the stream itself.
"Are you sure you're going in the right direction?" Giles asked suspiciously
of his sister.
"Absolutely," she said, not even bothering to turn and look at him. "Just
around that bend in the valley up ahead."
They followed her and rode on, finally rounding the bend in the valley and
There they were.
Jim's eyes opened as wide as they could. Right ahead of him he saw, in a
group about fifty strong, not the Hollow Men at all; but the Little Men of
Allingham's poem, just as the poem said, marching all together.
They were marching directly toward Jim. It was true their clothes were not
exactly as Allingham had described. They wore armor of metal plates on
leather.
Also, they carried a few things that the poem had not mentioned at all. To
wit, short stabbing swords almost Roman legionary-style weapons at their
belts; and all bore spears proportionate to their height; so that the
spearheads clustered several feet above their regular ranks, some five across
and ten deep.
The Little Men themselves looked to be around four feet in height and their
spears probably did not exceed seven feet at best. But they were very stout
and businesslike-looking spears, with glittering metal points.
Most of the Little Men wore bushy beards. But here and there among them Jim
saw a clean-shaven face. With the beard missing, the typical face he saw was
an almost heart-shaped one, coming down to a pointed chin, with bright blue
eyes and a short, almost snub, nose. A nose that looked almost related to the
delicate nose on Liseth, herself, so different it was from the hooked nose of
Giles, and the slightly smaller one of Brian. Dafydd, of course, had the sort
of impossibly narrow and straight nose that might be expected to go with the
rest of his handsome face, and reflected the finer boning of his Welsh
heritage, for all his height and width of shoulder.
Jim, himself, of course, had a perfectly ordinary nose, straight enough, but
unremarkable otherwise; except for a slight crook in it that came from being
broken in a volleyball game and the break never being surgically corrected.
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But, just as they had seen the Little Men advancing on them, the Little Men
had seen them advancing.At first sight, the spears of the two first ranks had
swung forward and down pointing directly ahead, so that they were facing
something not too different from a line of the ancient Greek hoplites in
phalanx formation.
Then, evidently one of them either changed his mind or recognized Liseth,
because there was a sharp command, and the spears swung up again. The whole
marching group stopped abruptly, together, as neatly as a drill team. Led by
Liseth, Jim and the others rode toward the front rank before them; and one of
the Little Men in it, with a gray-flecked, gingery beard, stepped forward to
meet her.
"Liseth de Mer!" said the Little Man and his voice was surprisingly
bass-toned and authoritative.
"All friends, Ardac, son of Lutel.My brother Giles, here, you know. Of these
other three, all are close Companions of his, who saved his life when he was
inFrance and killed, by bringing his body back for burial in theEnglish
Channel waters, from which he returned home. Just behind me
She turned her head to look at Jim. "Best dismount," she said.
"You were leading us to the Little Men all the time!" Giles hissed at his
sister as they dismounted.
"Of course!" she whispered back."Who more likely to know where Hollow Men are
to be found?"
Jim and the others swung down from their horses. More on a level with the
Little Men, Jim was able to appreciate what a sturdy bunch they were. They
might be short but their bones were thick and their bodies were compact. They
were standing now with the butts of their spears resting on the ground; but
still they presented a capable-looking appearance as warriors. Liseth was
continuing her words to Ardac, son of Lutel.
" Thisis Sir James Eckert, a knight famous for slaying an Ogre at a place
called theLoathlyTower  "
"We know of that Tower," said Ardac, son of Lutel, "but I had not heard of an
Ogre-slaying there, particularly by a single fighter."
" With Sir James is Sir Brian Neville-Smythe, who was also with him at
theLoathlyTower and slew a Worm by himself."
"Good fighters, they seem to be," said Ardac, "but you've yet given us no
reason why they should be considered friends and allowed here; though I own
that the fact that they have slain both an Ogre and a Worm puts them on our
side of the Wall, so to speak. Who is the third?"
Dafydd came forward.
"I am Dafyddap Hywel, look you," he said, "and if I mistake not, my blood is
none too distant from yours, though we must go far back in time to see the
connection."
"Ah?" said Ardac. "Where are you from?"
"He is," said Liseth, "a man ofWales . Though there are other reasons why you
might find him a friend; he was also at theLoathlyTower and almost died in
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holding off with his arrows the harpies that dived on them from clouds barely
overhead."
"That," said Ardac, "is something I would not have believed possible. Do you
know this for a fact, Liseth?"
"All ofBritain knows it for a fact," said Liseth. "I give you my word."
"And I, mine," put in Giles, "for what it is worth. I have seen this man and
there is no better archer in the world."
"Do you say so?" said Ardac. "Where is his bow, then?"
"It is here," said Dafydd, stepping back to his saddle and laying his hands
upon the cased bow which rode upright in its socket just behind his saddle.
"A bow that?" said Ardac. "Rather a spear shaft. I've never seen nor heard of
any bow half so large."
He jerked his head backward and to the two flanks of the formation behind
him.
"Our archers carry bows less than half that size."
"It is not the size alone, to be sure," said Dafydd, "but the taper from the
center to the ends. In that taper lies the secret of the longbow. I say
this,who am a bowyer, or bow-maker, myself; as well as fletcher, or
arrow-maker."
"If you are a maker of anything, you recommend yourself to us, cousin," said
Ardac, "and I call you cousin, for I see and hear now clearly that you are
indeed of the ancient blood. There was a time when our people owned much of
north and westBritain and land beyond the water west of this island. But tell [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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