She drew him down and kissed him fiercely with lips that clung, and then thrust him off.
“Take the knife; I shall never need it!”
“Isoult.”
“Now—go!”
“By God—I cannot!”
“My own mad fool, what can you do now? Come back with the sword to-morrow—and take your vengeance.”
He sprang up, her knife in his hand, as a man came out of the darkness. Fulk struck him so fiercely that he went down without a cry. Another rushed at him, and had the knife in his throat; but the rest of the pack were closing in.
Fulk heard Isoult call to him.
“The life is out of me, my desire. Run, cheat Merlin, and I’ll die happy.”
He threw himself down beside her, kissed her mouth, and sprang away from under the feet of Merlin’s men. A flurry of arrows went after him in the darkness, but they flew wild and wide, and before they could shoot again Fulk had reached the woods.