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Updated: May 12, 2025
Now marshal your men and take them off at once. We shan't have to wait long, for Addedomar is an active villain." Gadarn was right. The robber chief was very early astir that morning, and marched with his host so silently through the forest, that the very birds on the boughs gave them, as they passed underneath, but a sleepy wink of one eye and thrust their beaks again under their wings.
At their head strode Addedomar and a few of his stoutest men. Reaching the slope that led to the camp the four hundred men rushed up, still, however, in perfect silence, expecting to take their victims by surprise.
The sudden appearance, therefore, of foes with whom he could fight proved to be a sort of fortunate safety-valve, and, besides, he had the comfort of thinking that he would fight in a good cause, for the region of the Hot Swamp belonged to his friend Hudibras, and this robber Addedomar was a notorious rascal who required extirpating, while the chiefs who had joined him were little better.
While the robber chief was thus conversing with his scouts, two men were advancing through the forest, one of whom was destined to interfere with the plans which were so well conceived by Addedomar. These were our friends Arkal and Maikar.
On beholding the huge forms of Gadarn, Konar, and Beniah coming on in front they turned and fled like autumn leaves before a gale, without waiting even to discharge a single arrow. The courageous Addedomar was overwhelmed by the panic and carried away in the rush.
Yes, you are right, my dear; the coat is a pretty one, and he is a pretty lad that shall wear it not very handsome in the face, to be sure; but what does that matter so long as he's stout and strong and kind? I am sure his elder brother, Addedomar, will be kind to you though he is a bit rough to me sometimes."
The first scout brought the intelligence that it was not the men of King Hudibras who were in the neighbourhood, but those of Gadarn, the great chief of the far north, who had come there with an armed force in search of his daughter she having gone lost, stolen, or strayed in the wilderness. "Is the band a large one?" demanded Addedomar.
"Did you find out anything else about this lad?" he asked. "Only that he seemed from his dress to be a hunter." Addedomar frowned and looked at the ground for some moments in meditation. "I'm convinced," he said at last, "that this lad is none other than the girl who escaped in the hunting dress of my young brother, just the day before I returned to camp.
"Division sometimes means strength," said Dromas in a conciliatory tone, for he was anxious at least to prevent division in the council. "As Addedomar is ignorant of the strength of our force, his being attacked unexpectedly, and in the dark, by two or three bands at once, from different quarters, will do much to demoralise his men and throw them into confusion."
However, as we have said, there was little or no law in the land of old Albion at the time of which we write, so that we can scarcely wonder at the aspirations of the band under Addedomar aspirations which were to the full as strong perhaps even as noble as those of Alexander the Great or the first Napoleon.
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