The Goshawk was on his feet.
‘Now, lass,’ said he to Margarita, ’now
is the time!’ He took her hand, and led her to
the door. Schwartz Thier closed up behind her.
Not a man in the hall interposed. Werner’s
head moved round after them, like a dog on the watch;
but he was dumb. The door opened, and Farina
entered. He bore a sheaf of weapons under his
arm. The familiar sight relieved Werner’s
senses from the charm. He shouted to bar the
prisoners’ passage. His men were ranged
like statues in the hall. There was a start among
them, as if that terrible noise communicated an instinct
of obedience, but no more. They glanced at each
other, and remained quiet.
The Goshawk had his eye on Werner.
‘Stand back, lass!’ he said to Margarita.
She took a sword from Farina, and answered, with white
lips and flashing eyes, ‘I can fight, Goshawk!’
’And shall, if need be; but
leave it to me now, returned Guy.
His eye never left the Baron.
Suddenly a shriek of steel rang. All fell aside,
and the combatants stood opposed on clear ground.
Farina, took Margarita’s left hand, and placed
her against the wall between the Thier and himself.
Werner’s men were well content to let their master
fight it out. The words spoken by Henker Rothhals,
that the Devil had forsaken him, seemed in their minds
confirmed by the weird song which every one present
could swear he heard with his ears. ’Let
him take his chance, and try his own luck,’
they said, and shrugged. The battle was between
Guy, as Margarita’s champion, and Werner.
In Schwartz Thier’s judgement,
the two were well matched, and he estimated their
diverse qualities from sharp experience. ’For
short work the Baron, and my new mate for tough standing
to ‘t!’ Farina’s summary in favour
of the Goshawk was, ’A stouter heart, harder
sinews, and a good cause. The combat was generally
regarded with a professional eye, and few prayers.
Margarita solely there asked aid from above, and knelt
to the Virgin; but her, too, the clash of arms and
dire earnest of mortal fight aroused to eager eyes.
She had not dallied with heroes in her dreams.
She was as ready to second Siegfried on the crimson
field as tend him in the silken chamber.
It was well that a woman’s heart
was there to mark the grace and glory of manhood in
upright foot-to-foot encounter. For the others,
it was a mere calculation of lucky hits. Even
Farina, in his anxiety for her, saw but the brightening
and darkening of the prospect of escape in every attitude
and hard-ringing blow. Margarita was possessed
with a painful exaltation. In her eyes the bestial
Baron now took a nobler form and countenance; but
the Goshawk assumed the sovereign aspect of old heroes,
who, whether persecuted or favoured of heaven, still
maintained their stand, remembering of what stuff
they were, and who made them.
‘Never,’ say the old writers,
with a fervour honourable to their knowledge of the
elements that compose our being, ’never may this
bright privilege of fair fight depart from us, nor
advantage of it fail to be taken! Man against
man, or beast, singly keeping his ground, is as fine
rapture to the breast as Beauty in her softest hour
affordeth. For if woman taketh loveliness to
her when she languisheth, so surely doth man in these
fierce moods, when steel and iron sparkle opposed,
and their breath is fire, and their lips white with
the lock of resolution; all their faculties knotted
to a point, and their energies alive as the daylight
to prove themselves superior, according to the laws
and under the blessing of chivalry.’
‘For all,’ they go on
to improve the comparison, ’may admire and delight
in fair blossoming dales under the blue dome of peace;
but ’tis the rare lofty heart alone comprehendeth,
and is heightened by, terrific splendours of tempest,
when cloud meets cloud in skies black as the sepulchre,
and Glory sits like a flame on the helm of Ruin’
For a while the combatants aired their
dexterity, contenting themselves with cunning cuts
and flicks of the sword-edge, in which Werner first
drew blood by a keen sweep along the forehead of the
Goshawk. Guy had allowed him to keep his position
on the board, and still fought at his face and neck.
He now jerked back his body from the hip, and swung
a round stroke at Werner’s knee, sending him
in retreat with a snort of pain. Before the Baron
could make good his ground, Guy was level with him
on the board.
Werner turned an upbraiding howl at
his men. They were not disposed to second him
yet. They one and all approved his personal battle
with Fate, and never more admired him and felt his
power; but the affair was exciting, and they were
not the pillars to prop a falling house.
Werner clenched his two hands to his
ponderous glaive, and fell upon Guy with heavier fury.
He was becoming not unworth the little womanly appreciation
Margarita was brought to bestow on him. The voice
of the Water-Lady whispered at her heart that the
Baron warred on his destiny, and that ennobles all
living souls.
Bare-headed the combatants engaged,
and the headpiece was the chief point of attack.
No swerving from blows was possible for either:
ward, or take; a false step would have ensured defeat.
This also induced caution. Many a double stamp
of the foot was heard, as each had to retire in turn.
‘Not at his head so much, he’ll
bear battering there all night long,’ said Henker
Rothhals in a breathing interval. Knocks had been
pretty equally exchanged, but the Baron’s head
certainly looked the least vulnerable, whereas Guy
exhibited several dints that streamed freely.
Yet he looked, eye and bearing, as fresh as when they
began, and the calm, regular heave of his chest contrasted
with Werner’s quick gasps. His smile, too,
renewed each time the Baron paused for breath, gave
Margarita heart. It was not a taunting smile,
but one of entire confidence, and told all the more
on his adversary. As Werner led off again, and
the choice was always left him, every expression of
the Goshawk’s face passed to full light in his
broad eyes.
The Baron’s play was a reckless
fury. There was nothing to study in it.
Guy became the chief object of speculation. He
was evidently trying to wind his man.
He struck wildly, some thought.
Others judged that he was a random hitter, and had
no mortal point in aim. Schwartz Thier’s
opinion was frequently vented. ‘Too round
a stroke down on him! Chop-not slice!’
Guy persevered in his own fashion.
According to Schwartz Thier, he brought down by his
wilfulness the blow that took him on the left shoulder,
and nigh broke him. It was a weighty blow, followed
by a thump of sound. The sword-edge swerved on
his shoulder-blade, or he must have been disabled.
But Werner’s crow was short, and he had no time
to push success. One of the Goshawk’s swooping
under-hits half severed his right wrist, and the blood
spirted across the board. He gasped and seemed
to succumb, but held to it still, though with slackened
force. Guy now attacked. Holding to his
round strokes, he accustomed Werner to guard the body,
and stood to it so briskly right and left, that Werner
grew bewildered, lost his caution, and gave ground.
Suddenly the Goshawk’s glaive flashed in air,
and chopped sheer down on Werner’s head.
So shrewd a blow it was against a half-formed defence,
that the Baron dropped without a word right on the
edge of the board, and there hung, feebly grasping
with his fingers.
‘Who bars the way now?’ sang out Guy.
No one accepted the challenge.
Success clothed him with terrors, and gave him giant
size.
‘Then fare you well, my merry
men all,’ said Guy. ’Bear me no ill-will
for this. A little doctoring will right the bold
Baron.’
He strode jauntily to the verge of
the board, and held his finger for Margarita to follow.
She stepped forward. The men put their beards
together, muttering. She could not advance.
Farina doubled his elbow, and presented sword-point.
Three of the ruffians now disputed the way with bare
steel. Margarita looked at the Goshawk. He
was smiling calmly curious as he leaned over his sword,
and gave her an encouraging nod. She made another
step in defiance. One fellow stretched his hand
to arrest her. All her maidenly pride stood up
at once. ’What a glorious girl!’
murmured the Goshawk, as he saw her face suddenly flash,
and she retreated a pace and swung a sharp cut across
the knuckles of her assailant, daring him, or one
of them, with hard, bright eyes, beautifully vindictive,
to lay hand on a pure maiden.
‘You have it, Barenleib!’
cried the others, and then to Margarita: ’Look,
young mistress! we are poor fellows, and ask a trifle
of ransom, and then part friends.’
‘Not an ace!’ the Goshawk pronounced from
his post.
‘Two to one, remember.’
‘The odds are ours,’ replied the Goshawk
confidently.
They ranged themselves in front of
the hall-door. Instead of accepting this challenge,
Guy stepped to Werner, and laid his moaning foe length-wise
in an easier posture. He then lifted Margarita
on the board, and summoned them with cry of ‘Free
passage!’ They answered by a sullen shrug and
taunt.
‘Schwartz Thier! Rothhals!
Farina! buckle up, and make ready then,’ sang
Guy.
He measured the length, of his sword,
and raised it. The Goshawk had not underrated
his enemies. He was tempted to despise them when
he marked their gradually lengthening chaps and eyeballs.
Not one of them moved. All gazed
at him as if their marrows were freezing with horror.
‘What’s this?’ cried Guy.
They knew as little as he, but a force
was behind them irresistible against their efforts.
The groaning oak slipped open, pushing them forward,
and an apparition glided past, soft as the pallid silver
of the moon. She slid to the Baron, and put her
arms about him, and sang to him. Had the Water-Lady
laid an iron hand on all those ruffians, she could
not have held them faster bound than did the fear of
her presence. The Goshawk drew his fair charge
through them, followed by Farina, the Thier, and Rothhals.
A last glimpse of the hall showed them still as old
cathedral sculpture staring at white light on a fluted
pillar of the wall.