"
"You shall win more than that," Gilbert answered, his tone changing.
"But if you know of anything to do, in the name of God do it quickly,
for it is time."
"Good-by, sir."
Gilbert heard the two words, and while they were still in his ears,
half understood, Dunstan had slipped away among the squires and knights
around them, and was lost to sight.
One minute had not passed when a wild yell rent the air, with fierce
words, high and clear, which thousands must have heard at the very
first, even had they not been repeated again and again.
"The King has betrayed us! The King is a traitor to the Cross!"
At the very instant a stone flew straight from Dunstan's unerring hand,
and struck the King's horse fairly between the eyes, upon the rich
frontlet, heavy with gold embroidery. The charger reared up violently
to his height, and before he had got his head down to plunge, Dunstan's
furious scream split the air again, and the second stone struck the
King himself full on the breast, and rolled to the saddle and then to
the ground.
"The King has betrayed us all! Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!"
There never yet was a feverish, terror-struck throng of men, suddenly
disheartened by the unanswerable evidence of a great defeat by which
they themselves might be lost, that would not take up the cry of
"Traitor!" against their leaders. Before he raised his voice, Dunstan
had got among men who knew him neither by sight nor by name, and the
second stone had not sped home before he was gone again in a new
direction, silent now, with compressed lips, his inscrutable dark eyes
looking sharply about him.
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