Although he made a brave fight it was before long only too evident that he was failing; twice he staggered and almost fell, and though each time recovering himself, Norton was convinced that in another minute he must succumb. And now the better side of the Colonel’s nature once more asserted itself; he felt a certain admiration for his foe, an uneasy consciousness that there had been truth in that indignant cry of “Coward!” The thought disturbed him, so did the panting, agonising gasps of the Puritan, and an uncomfortable chill went to his heart when, in the heat of the combat, he felt a ring which he specially valued slip from his left hand.
Suddenly he was taken off his guard; with a desperate thrust Gabriel ran him through the body, and in the same instant both duellists fell to the ground, the one severely wounded, the other wholly exhausted by the rescue of the woman whom he loved, and in the defence of whose honour he had spent the last remnants of his failing strength.
CHAPTER XLI.
“Yet since that loving Lord
Commanded us to love them for His sake,
Even for His sake, and for his sacred Word,
Which in His last bequest He to us spake,
We should them love, and with their needs partake;