“I was not knight, but squire—when I tied your hands with your horse’s reins!”
A deeper red came to Montmaure’s face, the veins stood out upon his brow, his frame trembled. “Now I remember—! Flame of Hell! You are that insolent whom I sought—”
“I flew from your grasp, and I wintered well in Palestine.—And still you injure women!”
Jaufre lunged with the recovered sword. “I will kill you now—”
“That is as may be,” said Garin, and began again the paynim play.
But he was not destined to have to-day Jaufre’s death upon him, nor to spill his own life. With shouting and din, through the blackening air, Count Savaric swept this way, a thousand with him. The mêlée became wild, confused and dream-like. Jaufre sprang backward from the sword, like a serpent’s darting tongue, of Garin of the Golden Island. The Lord of Chalus pushed a black steed between and with a mace struck Garin down. He sank beside the heap of stones, and for a time lost knowledge of the clanging fight. It went this way and it went that. But the host of Roche-de-Frêne had great odds against it, and faster and faster it lost....
Garin came back to consciousness. Storm-light and failing day, sound as of world ruin, odour of blood, oppression of many bodies in narrow space, faintness of heat—Garin looked upward and saw through a cleft in the battle Roche-de-Frêne upon its hill-top, and the castle grey against the grey heaven, a looming grey dream. He sank again into the sea and night, but when he lifted again, lifted clear. He opened his eyes and found Aimar beside him, and Rainier.
Aimar bent to him. “What, Garin, Garin! All saints be praised! I thought you dead—”
“I live,” said Garin. “But the day is going against us.”
He spoke dreamily, and rose to his feet. Before and above him he still saw the grey castle. It lightened, and in a wide picture showed the broken host and the faces of fleeing men. One came by with outspread arms. “Lord Stephen is down—sore hurt or dead! Lord Stephen is down—”