Men of Iron

by Howard Pyle

In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, “Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too.” And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them.

For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all.

A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife.

“Thou shalt not draw it!” gasped Myles at last. “Thou shalt not stab me!”

Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over.

Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost.

In an instant—so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened—his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs.

The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other.

“Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth,” said one of the older lads. “Belike thou hast slain him!”

Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder.