Leaving five men on the south bank of the Nene, he dropped
bands of four at regular intervals along the road, with instructions to
patrol constantly the intervening distances on both sides of them. The
remaining five men he posted at the Roman highway, with orders not to
separate under any circumstances.
Leaving Raynor in charge of this detail, De Lacy and his squire jogged
slowly back toward Northampton. Hanging in an almost cloudless sky,
the full moon was lighting up with its brilliant uncertainty the
country around. The intense calm of the early morning was upon the
earth, and there was no sound but the tramp of their horses, varied, at
intervals, by the approach of one of the patrols or the passing of a
sentry post.
About midway to the Nene the squire's horse picked a stone. It stuck
persistently, and he swore at it under his breath as he tried to free
it. Presently it yielded, and he had raised his arm to hurl it far
away when a sharp word from De Lacy arrested him. They had chanced to
halt in the shadow of a bit of woodland which, at that point, fringed
the east side of the road. To the left, for some distance, the ground
was comparatively clear of timber, and crossing this open space, about
a hundred yards away, were two horsemen.
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