“Are not you rather a queer kind of Cavalier,” he asked, “if you think that a Puritan must needs be a fool?”
Halfman laughed back at him, and as he laughed he showed his teeth so seeming white by contrast with his sunburned cheeks, and he seemed to Evander more than ever like some half-tamed beast of prey.
“You are no fool, Puritan,” Halfman shouted, “or Heaven would not have wasted its time in gracing you with such skill at sports. So great with the rapier, so wise on the bias. No, no; you are no fool. I am almost sad to think you quit us so soon, enemy though you be.”
While Halfman had been babbling, Evander had again been busy with his staff. Halfman had paid no heed to his actions, being far too deep in his own phrases. Had he been attentive he might have noticed that at first Evander wrote on the green grass, as vainly as he might have written in water, a word, a name: Brilliana. Had he been attentive he might have noticed that Evander now wrote another word that was also a name and more than a name: Death. But he did not notice, and as he ended with his odd tribute to his enemy, Evander looked up at him with a calm face.
“I shall not quit you so soon,” he said, in an even voice. “I have come to stay at Harby.”
Halfman looked at him, puzzled.
“Stay at Harby,” he repeated. “Nonsense, man; what are you thinking of? You will be riding hence in three days’ time, when Sir Randolph is released.”
Evander shook his head.
“Sir Randolph will not be released,” he said. The quiet positiveness in his tone staggered Halfman. Stooping, with his hands resting on his knees, his unquiet eyes stared into Evander’s quiet eyes.
“Sir Randolph will not be released! Why the devil will Sir Randolph not be released?”