"Forth—forth, and feir nocht!" faintly reached his ear, mingled with shrill cries of alarm.
Suddenly his horse stumbled and came heavily down on its knees, throwing him prone to the earth. Ere he could rise, while a shriek burst from the women in the tower, Shelly had sprung from his horse, and throwing the bridle over his arm, placed his sword at the throat of the fallen.
"Here might I slay or capture you, Scot," said he; "but I have not forgotten your generosity on the night we met in that lonely castle of the Torwood. Here ends our quarrel; and in this field let us meet no more, unless it be that the fair one, whose name I jestingly mentioned on that night——"
"Nay, speak not of her," said Florence mournfully. "I seek not life, Master Shelly, but rather death; and from so honoured a sword as thine it were indeed more welcome!"
"Wherefore so sad?" said the Englishman. "Up, man, and be doing; for, by St. George! you Scots will have your hands full to-day. Here come our demi-lances again; away to your own band—you have not a moment to lose!"
Shelly remounted; Florence saluted him, and leaped lightly on his own horse.
"Farewell, Edward Shelly," exclaimed Florence with an emotion of enthusiasm; "thou art a soldier as generous as brave. I would rather be thy friend than thine enemy."
"To-day you have been both, fair sir," replied Shelly, as he wheeled his horse round. At that moment there came a loud whiz through the air, and struck by the ball of an arquebuse, which had been fired from the tower of Fawside, the brave Shelly fell dead from his terrified horse, which dragged him by the stirrup into the ditch where so many English were already lying killed and wounded.
Florence cast his eyes upward to the tower-head, from whence the pale light smoke was still curling. He saw the tall dark figure of a woman brandishing an arquebuse, and he knew in a moment that the hand of his stern mother had fired the fatal shot.
"She again!—oh, ruthless hand!" he muttered with a half-smothered groan; and turning his horse, galloped again to the Regent Arran.