"But I cannot, Rocelia," Sir Richard protested. "Got wot an I despise not the whole vile conspiracy. An you'll not go with me, I'll go alone ... and with a heart fair breaking for love of you. Come!" he pleaded; "let me bear you away out of this turmoil-ridden land to a place of safety, and peaceful quiet, and contentment."
"Ah! and how sweet it would all be, my dear," said she, allowing Sir Richard to take and keep her hand, but keeping him firmly at a distance withal. "I am so tired of it all. Naught have I known but strife and danger since I came out of girlhood. But, ah, no! it may never be. 'Tis your duty, Richard, to claim your own; and mine to prevail upon you not to abandon it. Never let it be said that my champion was a deserter of his colors."
"I held faithfully to the saffron color," declared Sir Richard, "and, i' faith, I'll hold to it still."
She smiled sadly, stroking his hair.
"But these other colors, Richard," said she, "were marked upon your escutcheon at your birth. You may not desert them."
Sir Richard had been all along looking up into Rocelia's face. He dropped his head disconsolately when she set him in the light of a deserter. He never knew what he would have answered. He knew only that she shrieked suddenly aloud and drew him swiftly close to her bosom.
"For the love of God, dear heart, turn!" she cried. "'Tis Zenas with a poniard!"
The young knight wheeled in time to see the murderous crook-back plucking his long blade from the earth, where it had buried itself to the very hilt under the impetus that was meant to have been expended upon Sir Richard's body.
In another moment the young knight had grappled with him; and then they went rolling and threshing over the ground in the throes of a deadly encounter. "God! what a strength is there in this grossly misshapen body!" Sir Richard thought, and though he kept tight hold of the hunchback's knife hand, every moment Sir Richard feared that he would succeed in turning the blade and driving it home in his neck. So narrow was the margin between the young knight and death withal, that once the keen point traveled across his throat and opened a slight scratch.
"You will kill my hound? you damned sword-and-buckler knight!" Zenas kept hissing in Sir Richard's ear. "You abominable puppet, you would cheat my good brother of his head to set you on a throne!—you fustian, lack-linen pretender!—you flap-dragon tippler!—I'll send you whirling straight to hell, an I get me this poniard home!"