"The battle-ax, or mace, sir knight," he said then, "would better suit our deadly purposes." He was not above looking to the advantages of his superior weight in offering this suggestion. Moreover, horsemanship played an important part in this kind of warfare, and the Duke was said to be a master horseman. "Yet——" he added the word and then paused reflectively.
"Yet what?" returned Sir Richard. "Out with it ere de Claverlok return to thwart the perfecting of our arrangements."
"Yet—" repeated the Duke slowly, again looking behind him down the hill, his lips still raised from off his teeth in a maddening smile, "I dislike me much to remove the single champion of a maiden in distress. Would you not consent to grant to me the legacy of effecting the fair one's release?"
The violence of Sir Richard's anger, scattering every vestige of prudence to the winds, might easily have resulted in defeating his well laid plan to escape. For, no sooner had the Duke finished, than the young knight found himself standing with his emptied tankard in his hand, while his enemy, with a diaphanous lace kerchief, was daintily wiping the dregs from it off his face. The fact that he missed a drop of the wine, which remained hanging from one of the ridiculous points of his upturned mustachios, sent Sir Richard into a paroxysm of laughter.
"An it comes to the question of a legacy, Renegade Duke," he stifled his merriment sufficiently to answer, "I shall do my mightiest to have it from you to me. An I make no mistake, my fine fellow, I shall gain the missive you have pilfered before the day is done."
While Sir Richard was speaking, de Claverlok was seen to be approaching at a swift gallop with their horses.
"Till we meet," returned the Duke quickly, "it shall again be yours. When your bonnet was being burnished this morning it rolled from out the fillet to the pavilion floor." Whereupon, having explained his possession of the note, he tossed the bit of paper before Sir Richard upon the table. Then, as de Claverlok drew rein and called aloud for them to mount—"Which shall it be," he whispered, "mace, battle-ax, or sword?"
"Battle-axes, at cock-shut time," Sir Richard hastily answered, moving in the direction of his waiting horse.
"Battle-axes at cock-shut time," repeated the Duke. Then, with a sweeping bow, he held the young knight's stirrup for him to mount. "Battle-axes at cock-shut time," he said again. "Thou hast laid a command upon me, ... Liege!" he added, with the last word hissed low in Sir Richard's ear as he vaulted lightly past him into his saddle.
"Liege?" thought the young knight to himself as he rode onward down the road beside de Claverlok. "Why all these ceremonious bows? This calling of me a noble knight? This strange captivity? Why should I—I, Richard Rohan, knight, and lowly messenger of the King be thus curtseyed to and addressed? And what mean these subdued mutterings among the men of 'A traitor in camp,' 'Douglas playing false and arming,' 'Tyrrell outmaneuvered'? Fates defend me. I had liefer set my lance against the Dragon of Wantley than make an attempt to unravel the deep mysteries by which I am this moment surrounded."