At that point I intervened. I could bear no more. When they spake so slightingly of my little mistress it was more than I could stand. I burst out of the brush and stood before them—mad, enraged all through me. I will admit that I lacked the composure and breeding of that precious pair. What I had heard had filled me with as hot an indignation as ever possessed the soul of man, and with every moment the fire of my resentment burned higher and more furiously. They started back at my sudden appearance, in some little discomfiture, from which he of the slower speech the more speedily recovered. He was the greater man, and eke the greater villain. The younger, the one with the red face, looked some of the discomposure he felt. The other presently leered at me in a deliberate and well intentioned insulting way and began:
“Now who may you be, my man, and what may you want?�
“Who I may be matters nothing,� said I, “but what I want matters a great deal.�
“Ah! And what is it that you want that matters so much?�
“In the first place, that sword.�
“This?� asked the sneering man, holding Sir Geoffrey’s handsome weapon lightly by the blade and smiling contemptuously at me.
“That,� answered I with equal scorn.
I am accustomed to move quickly as well as to think quickly, and before he knew it, I had it by the hilt and but that he released the blade instantly I would have cut his hand as I withdrew it. He swung round and clapped his hand on his own sword, a fierce oath breaking from his lips, his face black as a thundercloud.
“Don’t draw that little spit of yours,� I said, “or I will be under the necessity of breaking your back.�
I towered above both of them and I have no doubt that I could have made good my boast. Yet, to do him justice, the man had the courage of his race and station. He faced me undaunted, his hand on his sword hilt.