"Prosper," said Galors quietly, "you will wait here for me. You know that I shall return. It will be within half-an-hour from now."
"Good. I shall be here."
Galors dismounted and plunged into the wall of pines; they seemed to move and fold him in their mazes, and nothing spoke of him thereafter but the sound of his heavy tread on dry twigs. When this was lost an immense stillness sat brooding.
Neither Prosper nor Isoult could speak. Her presence was to him a warm consolation, to be apprehended by flashes in the course of a long battle with black and heavy thoughts; her also the pause (more fateful than the battle it had interrupted) affected strangely, the more strangely because she did not know the whole truth. I may say here that Prosper never told her of it; nor did she ask it of him. It was the one event of their lives, joint and disjoint, upon which they were always as dumb as now when they thought apart. Thoughtful apart though they were, they felt together. Prosper's hand stole upwards from his side; Isoult's drew to it as metal to magnet; the rest of that heavy hour they passed hand-in-hand. So children comfort each other in the dark.
Very faint and far off a solitary cry broke the vast dearth of the night. It rose like an owl's hooting, held, shuddered, and then died down. Prosper's clasp on the girl's hand suddenly straightened; it held convulsively while the call held, relaxed when it relaxed. Then the former hush swam again over the wood, and so endured until, after intolerable suspense, they heard the heavy tread of Galors de Born.
His bulk, his white impassive mask, were before them.
"I have settled my account, Prosper," he said. "Now settle yours."
Prosper shivered.
"I am quite ready," said he.
They changed, then crossed swords, and began their second rally on foot. You would have said that they were sluggish at the work, as if their blood had cooled with the long wait or sense of still more dreadful business in the background, and needed a sting to one or other to set it boiling again. They fenced almost idly at first; it was cut and parry—formalism. Galors was very steady; Prosper, breathing tightly through his nose, very wary. Gradually, however, they warmed to it. Galors got a cut in the upper arm, and began making ugly rushes, blundering, uncalculated bustles, which could only end one way. Prosper had little difficulty in evading most of these; Galors lost his breath and with it his temper. The sight of his own shield and sword, ever at point against him, made him mad. He could never reach his adroit enemy, it seemed. For a supreme effort he feigned, drew back, then made a rush. Prosper parried, recovered, and let in with a staggering head-cut which for the time dizzied his opponent. Galors lowered his head under his shield, made another desperate blind rush, and got to close quarters. The two men struggled together, fighting as much with shields as swords, and more with legs and arms than anything else. They were indistinguishable, a twisting and flashing tangle; they locked, writhed, swayed, tottered—then rent asunder. Galors fell heavily. He got on his feet again, however, for another rush. As he came on Prosper stepped aside, knocked out his guard and slashed at the shoulder—a dreadful thirsty blow. Galors staggered, his shield dropped; but he came on once more. Another side-cut beat his weapon down, and then a back-handed blow crashed into his gorget. He threw up his arms and staggered backwards; a last cut finished him. Galors with a cough that ended in a wet groan fell like lead. He never spoke nor moved again.