Prosper flushed red with annoyance. “Brother,”
said he, “thou art a greater fool than I thought
possible. Die how you will. God knows how
little of a god am I; but I will do what I can.
Hey, now! look about!” he called out the next
minute, and leapt back into the room. The door
split in the midst and fell apart. Two men fully
armed, with their vizors down, burst into the light;
they were upon him in a flash. Prosper up with
his shield and drove at them. They were no match
for him with swords, as they very soon found when
he penned them back in the entry. One of the
pair, indeed, lost his arm in the first passes of
the game, but the press of men behind forced them suddenly
and violently forward whether they would or no.
Prosper skewered one of them like a capon, against
his own will, for he knew what must happen of that.
Precisely; before he could disengage his weapon two
more were at him in front, and one dodging round behind
him with the hatchet slogged at his head with the
back of it. Prosper tottered; it was all up with
him. Another assailant slipped in under his guard
with a pike, which he drove into his ribs. A
second stinging blow from the hatchet dropped him.
Prone on his face he fell, and never knew of the trampling
he had from the freed pass.
They cut down and slew Spiridion as he was kneeling
in his shirt before the crucifix; and then Galors
came into the room to see that the work was done.
Prosper was lying on his face as he had fallen, with
a great hole in his head. Galors suffered a contempt
which he could not afford to such an enemy. He
kicked the body. “Rot there, carrion,”
he said; then, with an after-thought, “No—rot
in the water. Throw the pair of them by the window,”
he ordered his men, “and wait outside the gates
for, me. I have things to do here.”
This was done.
When he was alone he stripped off all his armour,
and put on instead Prosper’s equipment.
The defaced shield vexed him. Nothing was left
of the blazon; nothing was left at all but the legend,
“I bide my time.”
“That, is what I will do no longer,” said
Galors with a heavy oath. “I have bided
long enough; now, friend Prosper, do you bide yours.
As for the cognizance, I know it very well by this;
it shall be on again by the morning. Then we
will see if I can do as Prosper what I have failed
to do as Galors.”
He headed his troop for Hauterive, reached it before
daylight, and ended (as he thought) a signal chapter
in his progress. As for Prosper, he bided his
time with a broken head in Peering Pool.
CHAPTER XXVII
GALORS RIDES HUNTING
On the morning after the storm at Goltres, July 18,
Galors sat in the hall of his stronghold habited as
he had ridden in but a few hours before. In came
a red-haired peasant, asking to be made his man.
“Why so, fellow?” asked Galors.
“Lording,” said Falve, “because
my mother hath done me a wrong.”
Copyrights
The Forest Lovers from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
