The saints be mine assistance!"
"Would ye lie there idle?" cried Matcham. "Let us back into the
open. We have the better chance; he cannot steal upon us
unawares."
"Not I," said Dick. "My time is come, and peradventure he may pass
us by."
"Bend me, then, your bow!" cried the other. "What! will ye be a
man?"
Dick crossed himself. "Would ye have me shoot upon a leper?" he
cried. "The hand would fail me. Nay, now," he added--"nay, now,
let be! With sound men I will fight, but not with ghosts and
lepers. Which this is, I wot not. One or other, Heaven be our
protection!"
"Now," said Matcham, "if this be man's courage, what a poor thing
is man! But sith ye will do naught, let us lie close."
Then came a single, broken jangle on the bell.
"He hath missed his hold upon the clapper," whispered Matcham.
"Saints! how near he is!"
But Dick answered never a word; his teeth were near chattering.
Soon they saw a piece of the white robe between some bushes; then
the leper's head was thrust forth from behind a trunk, and he
seemed narrowly to scan the neighbourhood before he once again
withdrew.
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