Chapter Chapter 33 · Chapter 33

. Chapter 33

There was a little while of restless, rustling silence, during which the

Constable took his place in the seat appointed for him directly in

front of and below the King's throne. A moment or two when even the

restlessness and the rustling were quieted, and then the King leaned

forward and spoke to the Constable, who immediately called out, in a

loud, clear voice.

“Let them go!” Then again, “Let them go!” Then, for the third and last

time, “Let them go and do their endeavor, in God's name!”

At this third command the combatants, each of whom had till that moment

been sitting as motionless as a statue of iron, tightened rein, and rode

slowly and deliberately forward without haste, yet without hesitation,

until they met in the very middle of the lists.

In the battle which followed, Myles fought with the long sword, the Earl

with the hand-gisarm for which he had asked. The moment they met, the

combat was opened, and for a time nothing was heard but the thunderous

clashing and clamor of blows, now and then beating intermittently, now

and then pausing. Occasionally, as the combatants spurred together,

checked, wheeled, and recovered, they would be hidden for a moment in

a misty veil of dust, which, again drifting down the wind, perhaps

revealed them drawn a little apart, resting their panting horses. Then,

again, they would spur together, striking as they passed, wheeling and

striking again.

Upon the scaffolding all was still, only now and then for the buzz of

muffled exclamations or applause of those who looked on. Mostly the

applause was from Myles's friends, for from the very first he showed and

steadily maintained his advantage over the older man. “Hah! well struck!

well recovered!” “Look ye! the sword bit that time!” “Nay, look, saw ye

him pass the point of the gisarm?” Then, “Falworth! Falworth!” as some

more than usually skilful stroke or parry occurred.

Meantime Myles's father sat straining his sightless eyeballs, as though

to pierce his body's darkness with one ray of light that would show him

how his boy held his own in the fight, and Lord Mackworth, leaning with

his lips close to the blind man's ear, told him point by point how the

battle stood.

“Fear not, Gilbert,” said he at each pause in the fight. “He holdeth his

own right well.” Then, after a while: “God is with us, Gilbert. Alban

is twice wounded and his horse faileth. One little while longer and the

victory is ours!”

A longer and more continuous interval of combat followed this

last assurance, during which Myles drove the assault fiercely and

unrelentingly as though to overbear his enemy by the very power

and violence of the blows he delivered. The Earl defended himself

desperately, but was borne back, back, back, farther and farther. Every

nerve of those who looked on was stretched to breathless tensity, when,

almost as his enemy was against the barriers, Myles paused and rested.

“Out upon it!” exclaimed the Earl of Mackworth, almost shrilly in his

excitement, as the sudden lull followed the crashing of blows. “Why doth

the boy spare him? That is thrice he hath given him grace to recover;

an he had pushed the battle that time he had driven him back against the

barriers.”

It was as the Earl had said; Myles had three times given his enemy grace

when victory was almost in his very grasp. He had three times spared

him, in spite of all he and those dear to him must suffer should his

cruel and merciless enemy gain the victory. It was a false and foolish

generosity, partly the fault of his impulsive youth--more largely of

his romantic training in the artificial code of French chivalry. He felt

that the battle was his, and so he gave his enemy these three chances to

recover, as some chevalier or knight-errant of romance might have

done, instead of pushing the combat to a mercifully speedy end--and his

foolish generosity cost him dear.

In the momentary pause that had thus stirred the Earl of Mackworth to

a sudden outbreak, the Earl of Alban sat upon his panting, sweating

war-horse, facing his powerful young enemy at about twelve paces

distant. He sat as still as a rock, holding his gisarm poised in front

of him. He had, as the Earl of Mackworth had said, been wounded twice,

and each time with the point of the sword, so much more dangerous than a

direct cut with the weapon. One wound was beneath his armor, and no one

but he knew how serious it might be; the other was under the overlapping

of the epauhere, and from it a finger's-breadth of blood ran straight

down his side and over the housings of his horse. From without, the

still motionless iron figure appeared calm and expressionless; within,

who knows what consuming blasts of hate, rage, and despair swept his

heart as with a fiery whirlwind.

As Myles looked at the motionless, bleeding figure, his breast swelled

with pity. “My Lord,” said he, “thou art sore wounded and the fight is

against thee; wilt thou not yield thee?”

No one but that other heard the speech, and no one but Myles heard the

answer that came back, hollow, cavernous, “Never, thou dog! Never!”

Then in an instant, as quick as a flash, his enemy spurred straight upon

Myles, and as he spurred he struck a last desperate, swinging blow, in

which he threw in one final effort all the strength of hate, of fury,

and of despair. Myles whirled his horse backward, warding the blow with

his shield as he did so. The blade glanced from the smooth face of the

shield, and, whether by mistake or not, fell straight and true, and with

almost undiminished force, upon the neck of Myles's war-horse, and just

behind the ears. The animal staggered forward, and then fell upon its

knees, and at the same instant the other, as though by the impetus of

the rush, dashed full upon it with all the momentum lent by the weight

of iron it carried. The shock was irresistible, and the stunned and

wounded horse was flung upon the ground, rolling over and over. As his

horse fell, Myles wrenched one of his feet out of the stirrup; the other

caught for an instant, and he was flung headlong with stunning violence,

his armor crashing as he fell. In the cloud of dust that arose no

one could see just what happened, but that what was done was done

deliberately no one doubted. The earl, at once checking and spurring

his foaming charger, drove the iron-shod war-horse directly over Myles's

prostrate body. Then, checking him fiercely with the curb, reined him

back, the hoofs clashing and crashing, over the figure beneath. So

he had ridden over the father at York, and so he rode over the son at

Smithfield.

Myles, as he lay prostrate and half stunned by his fall, had seen his

enemy thus driving his rearing horse down upon him, but was not able to

defend himself. A fallen knight in full armor was utterly powerless to

rise without assistance; Myles lay helpless in the clutch of the very

iron that was his defence. He closed his eyes involuntarily, and then

horse and rider were upon him. There was a deafening, sparkling crash,

a glimmering faintness, then another crash as the horse was reined

furiously back again, and then a humming stillness.

In a moment, upon the scaffolding all was a tumult of uproar and

confusion, shouting and gesticulation; only the King sat calm, sullen,

impassive. The Earl wheeled his horse and sat for a moment or two as

though to make quite sure that he knew the King's mind. The blow that

had been given was foul, unknightly, but the King gave no sign either of

acquiescence or rebuke; he had willed that Myles was to die.

Then the Earl turned again, and rode deliberately up to his prostrate

enemy.

When Myles opened his eyes after that moment of stunning silence, it was

to see the other looming above him on his war-horse, swinging his gisarm

for one last mortal blow--pitiless, merciless.

The sight of that looming peril brought back Myles's wandering senses

like a flash of lightning. He flung up his shield, and met the blow even

as it descended, turning it aside. It only protracted the end.

Once more the Earl of Alban raised the gisarm, swinging it twice around

his head before he struck. This time, though the shield glanced it, the

blow fell upon the shoulder-piece, biting through the steel plate and

leathern jack beneath even to the bone. Then Myles covered his head with

his shield as a last protecting chance for life.

For the third time the Earl swung the blade flashing, and then it fell,

straight and true, upon the defenceless body, just below the left arm,

biting deep through the armor plates. For an instant the blade stuck

fast, and that instant was Myles's salvation. Under the agony of the

blow he gave a muffled cry, and almost instinctively grasped the shaft

of the weapon with both hands. Had the Earl let go his end of the

weapon, he would have won the battle at his leisure and most easily; as

it was, he struggled violently to wrench the gisarm away from Myles. In

that short, fierce struggle Myles was dragged to his knees, and then,

still holding the weapon with one hand, he clutched the trappings of the

Earl's horse with the other. The next moment he was upon his feet. The

other struggled to thrust him away, but Myles, letting go the gisarm,

which he held with his left hand, clutched him tightly by the sword-belt

in the intense, vise-like grip of despair. In vain the Earl strove to

beat him loose with the shaft of the gisarm, in vain he spurred and

reared his horse to shake him off; Myles held him tight, in spite of all

his struggles.

He felt neither the streaming blood nor the throbbing agony of his

wounds; every faculty of soul, mind, body, every power of life, was

centered in one intense, burning effort. He neither felt, thought, nor

reasoned, but clutching, with the blindness of instinct, the heavy,

spiked, iron-headed mace that hung at the Earl's saddle-bow, he gave it

one tremendous wrench that snapped the plaited leathern thongs that held

it as though they were skeins of thread. Then, grinding his teeth as

with a spasm, he struck as he had never struck before--once, twice,

thrice full upon the front of the helmet. Crash! crash! And then, even

as the Earl toppled sidelong, crash! And the iron plates split and

crackled under the third blow. Myles had one flashing glimpse of an

awful face, and then the saddle was empty.

Then, as he held tight to the horse, panting, dizzy, sick to death, he

felt the hot blood gushing from his side, filling his body armor, and

staining the ground upon which he stood. Still he held tightly to the

saddle-bow of the fallen man's horse until, through his glimmering

sight, he saw the Marshal, the Lieutenant, and the attendants gather

around him. He heard the Marshal ask him, in a voice that sounded faint

and distant, if he was dangerously wounded. He did not answer, and one

of the attendants, leaping from his horse, opened the umbril of his

helmet, disclosing the dull, hollow eyes, the ashy, colorless lips, and

the waxy forehead, upon which stood great beads of sweat.

“Water! water!” he cried, hoarsely; “give me to drink!” Then, quitting

his hold upon the horse, he started blindly across the lists towards the

gate of the barrier. A shadow that chilled his heart seemed to fall upon

him. “It is death,” he muttered; then he stopped, then swayed for an

instant, and then toppled headlong, crashing as he fell.

CONCLUSION

But Myles was not dead. Those who had seen his face when the umbril of

the helmet was raised, and then saw him fall as he tottered across the

lists, had at first thought so. But his faintness was more from loss

of blood and the sudden unstringing of nerve and sense from the intense

furious strain of the last few moments of battle than from the vital

nature of the wound. Indeed, after Myles had been carried out of the

lists and laid upon the ground in the shade between the barriers,

Master Thomas, the Prince's barber-surgeon, having examined the wounds,

declared that he might be even carried on a covered litter to Scotland

Yard without serious danger. The Prince was extremely desirous of having

him under his care, and so the venture was tried. Myles was carried to

Scotland Yard, and perhaps was none the worse therefore. The Prince, the

Earl of Mackworth, and two or three others stood silently watching as

the worthy shaver and leecher, assisted by his apprentice and Gascoyne,

washed and bathed the great gaping wound in the side, and bound it with

linen bandages. Myles lay with closed eyelids, still, pallid, weak as

a little child. Presently he opened his eyes and turned them, dull and

languid, to the Prince.

“What hath happed my father, my Lord?” said he, in a faint, whispering

voice.

“Thou hath saved his life and honor, Myles,” the Prince answered. “He

is here now, and thy mother hath been sent for, and cometh anon with the

priest who was with them this morn.”

Myles dropped his eyelids again; his lips moved, but he made no sound,

and then two bright tears trickled across his white cheek.

“He maketh a woman of me,” the Prince muttered through his teeth, and

then, swinging on his heel, he stood for a long time looking out of the

window into the garden beneath.

“May I see my father?” said Myles, presently, without opening his eyes.

The Prince turned around and looked inquiringly at the surgeon.

The good man shook his head. “Not to-day,” said he; “haply to-morrow he

may see him and his mother. The bleeding is but new stanched, and such

matters as seeing his father and mother may make the heart to swell, and

so maybe the wound burst afresh and he die. An he would hope to live, he

must rest quiet until to-morrow day.”

But though Myles's wound was not mortal, it was very serious. The fever

which followed lingered longer than common--perhaps because of the hot

weather--and the days stretched to weeks, and the weeks to months, and

still he lay there, nursed by his mother and Gascoyne and Prior Edward,

and now and again by Sir James Lee.

One day, a little before the good priest returned to Saint Mary's

Priory, as he sat by Myles's bedside, his hands folded, and his sight

turned inward, the young man suddenly said, “Tell me, holy father, is it

always wrong for man to slay man?”

The good priest sat silent for so long a time that Myles began to think

he had not heard the question. But by-and-by he answered, almost with a

sigh, “It is a hard question, my son, but I must in truth say, meseems

it is not always wrong.”

“Sir,” said Myles, “I have been in battle when men were slain, but never

did I think thereon as I have upon this matter. Did I sin in so slaying

my father's enemy?”

“Nay,” said Prior Edward, quietly, “thou didst not sin. It was for

others thou didst fight, my son, and for others it is pardonable to do

battle. Had it been thine own quarrel, it might haply have been more

hard to have answered thee.”

Who can gainsay, even in these days of light, the truth of this that the

good priest said to the sick lad so far away in the past?

One day the Earl of Mackworth came to visit Myles. At that time the

young knight was mending, and was sitting propped up with pillows, and

was wrapped in Sir James Lee's cloak, for the day was chilly. After a

little time of talk, a pause of silence fell.

“My Lord,” said Myles, suddenly, “dost thou remember one part of a

matter we spoke of when I first came from France?”

The Earl made no pretence of ignorance. “I remember,” said he, quietly,

looking straight into the young man's thin white face.

“And have I yet won the right to ask for the Lady Alice de Mowbray to

wife?” said Myles, the red rising faintly to his cheeks.

“Thou hast won it,” said the Earl, with a smile.

Myles's eyes shone and his lips trembled with the pang of sudden joy

and triumph, for he was still very weak. “My Lord,” said he, presently

“belike thou camest here to see me for this very matter?”

The Earl smiled again without answering, and Myles knew that he had

guessed aright. He reached out one of his weak, pallid hands from

beneath the cloak. The Earl of Mackworth took it with a firm pressure,

then instantly quitting it again, rose, as if ashamed of his emotion,

stamped his feet, as though in pretence of being chilled, and then

crossed the room to where the fire crackled brightly in the great stone

fireplace.

Little else remains to be told; only a few loose strands to tie, and the

story is complete.

Though Lord Falworth was saved from death at the block, though his honor

was cleansed from stain, he was yet as poor and needy as ever. The

King, in spite of all the pressure brought to bear upon him, refused to

restore the estates of Falworth and Easterbridge--the latter of which

had again reverted to the crown upon the death of the Earl of Alban

without issue--upon the grounds that they had been forfeited not because

of the attaint of treason, but because of Lord Falworth having refused

to respond to the citation of the courts. So the business dragged along

for month after month, until in January the King died suddenly in the

Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster. Then matters went smoothly enough, and

Falworth and Mackworth swam upon the flood-tide of fortune.

So Myles was married, for how else should the story end? And one day

he brought his beautiful young wife home to Falworth Castle, which his

father had given him for his own, and at the gateway of which he was met

by Sir James Lee and by the newly-knighted Sir Francis Gascoyne.

One day, soon after this home-coming, as he stood with her at an open

window into which came blowing the pleasant May-time breeze, he suddenly

said, “What didst thou think of me when I first fell almost into thy

lap, like an apple from heaven?”

“I thought thou wert a great, good-hearted boy, as I think thou art

now,” said she, twisting his strong, sinewy fingers in and out.

“If thou thoughtst me so then, what a very fool I must have looked to

thee when I so clumsily besought thee for thy favor for my jousting at

Devlen. Did I not so?”

“Thou didst look to me the most noble, handsome young knight that did

ever live; thou didst look to me Sir Galahad, as they did call thee,

withouten taint or stain.”

Myles did not even smile in answer, but looked at his wife with such a

look that she blushed a rosy red. Then, laughing, she slipped from his

hold, and before he could catch her again was gone.

I am glad that he was to be rich and happy and honored and beloved after

all his hard and noble fighting.