“ We must have the roads safe for wandering Englishmen,” said Knolles. “These men must surely die. Hang them to yonder tree.”
He pointed to a live-oak by the roadside, and rode onward upon his way in converse with his fellow-knights. But the old bowman had ridden after him.
“ If it please you, Sir Robert, the bowmen would fain put these men to death in their own fashion,” said he.
“ So that they die, I care not how,” Knolles answered carelessly, and looked back no more.
Human life was cheap in those stern days when the footmen of a stricken army or the crew of a captured ship were slain without any question or thought of mercy by the victors. War was a rude game with death for the stake, and the forfeit was always claimed on the one side and paid on the other without doubt or hes
