“A traitor! Who?”
“Henry Holtspur—a traitor to his king.”
“Coward!” cried Holtspur, returning scorn for scorn; “this is the thanks I receive for sparing your paltry life. From your extensive entourage of steel-clad hirelings, it is evident you fear a second chastisement at my hands. Why did you not bring a whole regiment with you? Ha! ha! ha!”
“You are pleased to be facetious,” said Scarthe, whose triumphant position facilitated the restraining of his temper. “In the end, Master Holtspur, you may find it not such matter for mirth. Let them be merry who win. Laughter comes with but ill grace from the lips of those who are about to lose; nay, have already lost.”
“Already lost!” interrupted Holtspur, driven to the interrogatory, by the tone of significant insinuation in which the other had spoken.
“Not your liberty: though that also you have already lost. Not your head: that you may lose by-and-bye; but something which, if you be a true cavalier, should be dear to you as either.”
“What?” mechanically inquired Holtspur, moved to the interrogatory, less by the ambiguous speech than by the sight of an object which, at that moment, flashed before his angry eye. “What?”
“Your mistress!” was the taunting reply. “Don’t fancy, my pretty picker-up of stray gloves, that you are the only one who receives such sweet favours. The fair lady of the golden hair, and white gauntlets, may have taken a fancy to dispose of a pair; and where two are thus delicately dispensed, the last given is the one most prized by me!”
As Scarthe said this, he raised his hand triumphantly towards the peak of his helmet; where a glove of white doeskin was seen conspicuously set—its tapering fingers turned forward, as if pointing in derision at him who possessed its fellow!
Scarthe’s gesture was superfluous. The eye of his adversary had been already fixed upon the indicated object; and the frown, that suddenly overspread his face, betrayed a strange commingling of emotions—surprise, incredulity, anger, with something more than its share of incipient jealousy.