"Drink, Waynes!" cried Red Ratcliffe on the sudden. "In the name of the dead man, peace between Wayne and Ratcliffe."
The Waynes lifted their goblets high, and ran headlong forward, and dashed them in the faces of the Ratcliffes while yet their blades were only half free of the scabbards.
"Wayne and the Dog!" the cry rang out, and before the red-heads could wipe the wine-stains and the blood from mouth and eyes, the Waynes were on them.
The fight seemed long to Janet, fingering her dagger and longing for a share in it; but it was swift as the moor-wind screaming round the house of Wildwater. The wind was a tempest now; yet its voice was drowned in the blustering yell of "Wayne! Wayne and the Dog!"—-the cry that had driven the Ratcliffes from many a well-fought field.
They had no chance. Surprised, outwitted, blinded by the wine-cups, they struck at random. But the Waynes aimed true and hard. One by one the Ratcliffes dropped, and still Shameless Wayne lifted the feud-cry of his house. Neither courteous nor soft of heart was Wayne of Marsh this night—nor would be till the work was done.
Ten of the foe were down, and the score and five still left were fighting with their backs against the wall. A lad's laugh broke now and then across the groans, the feud-cries, the hiss of leaping steel; for Griff was young to battle, and the two lives he had claimed had maddened him. Shameless Wayne said naught at all; but kill was graven on his face.
The din of battle had wakened even the dead, it seemed; for on a sudden the Lean Man sat him upright on the bier and watched the fight. A flame was in his eyes, and with one shaking hand he strove to wrench the jaw-cloth loose, and could not. His lips moved with a voiceless cry, as if he would fain have cheered his folk to the attack; but speech and body-strength had failed, and only the brain, the quick, scheming brain, was live in him. Yet none marked his agony, none moved to unwrap the grave-cloth from his jaws.
The Ratcliffes, desperate now, made a last sudden effort just as the Waynes were surest of their victory. With one deep-throated yell they leaped to the attack, and drove the foe back with a rush, and rained in their blows as only men do when the grave is hungry for them. Two of the long Waynes of Cranshaw dropped, and one of the Hill House men. It seemed the Wildwater folk might conquer yet by very fury of the forlorn hope they were leading.
"A Ratcliffe! A Ratcliffe!" roared the on-sweeping band.
"Wayne and the Dog!" came the answer—but feebler now and less assured, for three more Waynes were lying face to the ceiling-timbers.