Female shrieks were now heard coming from the King’s pavilion without the lists, and all was commotion in the King’s gallery. Robert himself was seen moving away, supported by some of his people; and, in defiance of propriety, many were seen rushing out before him by the way that led down to the pavilion. In a few minutes the gallery was cleared.
Meanwhile the combatants still stood gazing with fixed and ghastly look at each other; and their two friends sat like equestrian statues, with their lance-shafts crossed between them, but uttering no word, and giving no sign; and, while they were thus grouped, a messenger came to announce to the Constable the King’s pleasure that the duel should be forthwith terminated and ended without further bloodshed, he having taken the quarrel into his own hand, and that he was prepared to decide it in his own pavilion, where the combatants were ordered immediately to attend him; that the two knights should be led forth of the lists, each by his own gate, the one by the Constable, and the other by the Marshal, and that both should make exit at the same moment, by signal from the heralds’ trumpets, [[615]]that neither might suffer the disgrace of being the first to quit them.
The King’s command was no sooner made known than a loud shout burst from the brave and noble hearts who had witnessed this obstinate and sanguinary duel. His Majesty’s orders were punctually obeyed, and Sir Patrick Hepborne followed the marshalman with tottering steps, whilst Halyburton went staggering in the opposite direction, and as if he was groping his way in the dark after the Constable. The trumpets sounded, and they disappeared from the gates. Hepborne, supported by his guide and his faithful esquire, made the best of his way round to the external entrance to the King’s pavilion; but thither Sir John Halyburton never came, for he swooned away the moment he had crossed the threshold of the gateway. As Hepborne was entering the pavilion, a lady, frantic with grief and despair, rushed by him, and made her way towards the eastern gate, followed by several attendants.
Sir Patrick made his obeisance to the King, immediately upon coming into the pavilion, and His Majesty, with the Regent, came kindly towards him, to praise his valour and to inquire into his safety. A crowd, among whom he recognized the Lord and Lady Dirleton, the Earl and Countess of Moray, and the Franciscan, surrounded a lady who seemed to be overwhelmed with affliction.
“He is safe,” cried half a dozen voices to her immediately on perceiving him; and the circle opening at the moment, he beheld the Lady Beatrice de Vaux. At one and the same instant she screamed aloud when she saw him, and he sprang forward to throw himself at her feet, where he fainted away.
CHAPTER LXXVI.
The Friar’s Tale—The Two Combatants—Lady Eleanore’s explanation—All is well that ends well.
It was not wonderful that a sudden ecstasy of joy, such as that which burst unexpectedly on Hepborne, coming after so much mental wretchedness, and when his bodily frame had been so weakened by fatigue, wounds, and loss of blood, should have thrown him into a swoon, from which he only awakened to show symptoms of a feverish delirium. He passed some days and nights under all the strange and fluctuating delusions of a [[616]]labouring dream, during which the angelic image of her he loved, and the hated form of the Franciscan, appeared before him, but in his delirium he knew them not.
It was after a long and deep sleep that he opened his eyelids, and felt, for the first time, a consciousness of perfect calmness and clearness of intellect, but combined with a sense of great exhaustion. He turned in bed, and immediately he heard a light step move towards it from a distant part of the room. The drapery was lifted up, and the lovely, though grief-worn countenance of Beatrice looked anxiously in upon him.