The exclamation was wrung from him by a pass of Blair's that the prince parried so narrowly that Blair's blade cut his sleeve from elbow to wrist.
The faces of the two men were white as death, their teeth set, their eyes gleaming with that fire which springs from hearts burning for a fellow creature's life.
Another moment would settle it, one way or the other, and Blair, whose strength was beginning to tell, was wearing down the prince's guard; the seconds were, all unconsciously, drawing nearer and nearer in readiness for the fatal moment, when a woman's shriek clave the air, and two figures seemed to spring from the ground, and fling themselves upon the prince.
[CHAPTER XXXII.]
Blair sprung forward and picked up the prince's sword, and was offering it to him when one of the women released her grasp of the prince, and turning to Blair with outstretched arms, uttered his name.
He started and shuddered as if he had been shot, then, with his eyes fixed on the pale, lovely face before him, began to tremble. The fact was, the poor fellow thought that he was dead, and that this was his Margaret coming to meet him in the other land!
"Blair!" she breathed, trembling like himself, and drawing a little nearer; "Blair, do you not know me?"
Then he uttered a cry—a cry of such agony, of doubt, and fear, and longing, that it went to the hearts of all who heard it. It touched two of them with pity, but the third—the prince's—it turned to fire.