There was a little while of restless, rustling silence, duringwhich the Constable took his place in the seat appointed for himdirectly in front of and below the King's throne. A moment or twowhen even the restlessness and the rustling were quieted, andthen the King leaned forward and spoke to the Constable, whoimmediately called out, in a loud, clear voice.
"Let them go!" Then again, "Let them go!" Then, for the third andlast time, "Let them go and do their endeavor, in God's name!"At this third command the combatants, each of whom had till thatmoment been sitting as motionless as a statue of iron, tightenedrein, and rode slowly and deliberately forward without haste, yetwithout hesitation, until they met in the very middle of thelists.
In the battle which followed, Myles fought with the long sword,the Earl with the hand-gisarm for which he had asked. The momentthey met, the combat was opened, and for a time nothing was heardbut the thunderous clashing and clamor of blows, now and thenbeating intermittently, now and then pausing. Occasionally, asthe 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 alittle apart, resting their panting horses. Then, again, theywould spur together, striking as they passed, wheeling andstriking again.
Upon the scaffolding all was still, only now and then for thebuzz of muffled exclamations or applause of those who looked on.
Mostly the applause was from Myles's friends, for from the veryfirst he showed and steadily maintained his advantage over theolder man. "Hah! well struck! well recovered!" "Look ye! thesword bit that time!" "Nay, look, saw ye him pass the point ofthe gisarm?" Then, "Falworth! Falworth!" as some more thanusually skilful stroke or parry occurred.
Meantime Myles's father sat straining his sightless eyeballs, asthough to pierce his body's darkness with one ray of light thatwould show him how his boy held his own in the fight, and LordMackworth, 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. "Heholdeth his own right well." Then, after a while: "God is withus, Gilbert. Alban is twice wounded and his horse faileth. Onelittle while longer and the victory is ours!"A longer and more continuous interval of combat followed thislast assurance, during which Myles drove the assault fiercely andunrelentingly as though to overbear his enemy by the very powerand violence of the blows he delivered. The Earl defended himselfdesperately, but was borne back, back, back, farther and farther.
Every nerve of those who looked on was stretched to breathlesstensity, when, almost as his enemy was against the barriers,Myles paused and rested.
"Out upon it!" exclaimed the Earl of Mackworth, almost shrilly inhis excitement, as the sudden lull followed the crashing ofblows. "Why doth the boy spare him? That is thrice he hath givenhim grace to recover; an he had pushed the battle that time hehad driven him back against the barriers."It was as the Earl had said; Myles had three times given hisenemy grace when victory was almost in his very grasp. He hadthree times spared him, in spite of all he and those dear to himmust suffer should his cruel and merciless enemy gain thevictory. It was a false and foolish generosity, partly the faultof his impulsive youth--more largely of his romantic training inthe artificial code of French chivalry. He felt that the battlewas 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-- andhis foolish generosity cost him dear.
In the momentary pause that had thus stirred the Earl ofMackworth to a sudden outbreak, the Earl of Alban sat upon hispanting, sweating war- horse, facing his powerful young enemy atabout twelve paces distant. He sat as still as a rock, holdinghis gisarm poised in front of him. He had, as the Earl ofMackworth had said, been wounded twice, and each time with thepoint of the sword, so much more dangerous than a direct cut withthe weapon. One wound was beneath his armor, and no one but heknew how serious it might be; the other was under the overlappingof the epauhere, and from it a finger's-breadth of blood ranstraight down his side and over the housings of his horse. Fromwithout, the still motionless iron figure appeared calm andexpressionless; within, who knows what consuming blasts of hate,rage, and despair swept his heart as with a fiery whirlwind.
