For, indeed, Lord Sayle’s point time and again flashed perilously near; once it flickered through the ringlets of Sir John’s peruke, and once it tore the laces at his throat, but after every desperate rally it was to be noticed that my lord’s brown velvet coat showed ever more woefully tattered.
Suddenly, albeit a little breathlessly, Sir John spoke, plain for all to hear:
“So much for your coat, my lord! And now for yourself—let us make an end ... you shall receive your quietus on the count of three.... One! Two!” A sudden clashing of desperate steel, then my lord leapt out of distance and, uttering a hoarse cry of bitter despair, hurled his useless sword from him and stood dreadfully pale, bathed in sweat, and, striving to voice his passionate hate, gasped mouthing incoherencies.
“Take up your sword, sir—take up ... your sword and ... let us finish!” panted Sir John. But Lord Sayle folded his arms, staring upon his antagonist with eyes of murder.
Then Sir John laughed.
“What, have ye enough, sir?” he questioned scornfully. “Are ye done so soon and never a drop o’ blood, nor so much as a scratch?” Receiving no answer, he laughed again and turned his back. “Robert,” he cried—“Robert, see the pitiful fellow off my land.”
Stung to madness, Lord Sayle reached swiftly for his fallen sword, but the Corporal was before him and, snapping the weapon across his knee, tossed the pieces aside.
“My lord,” said he, “your horse is yonder, I think.”
Lord Sayle raised haggard face from earth to sky, stared round him upon the gaping throng with expression bordering on despair, and strode whither the Corporal’s finger pointed. And, as he went, the skirts of his brown velvet coat fluttered grotesquely about him, yet of all who watched, no one spoke, much less laughed. Reaching his horse, he mounted and, without one backward glance, gathered up the reins and, spurring savagely, galloped away, leaving his friends and servants to follow as they would.
“And now, Hector,” said Sir John, catching up his hat, “what of old Penelope? How is she?”