“Love is a shield.”
He half lifted her out of the boat, bent for an instant to throw the ring of the chain over the post and to snatch up his sword.
“Now!”
They made their dash for the house, and reached the porch untouched.
Fulk caught Isoult’s face between his hands and kissed her on the lips.
CHAPTER XXXIV
They were breathless, both of them, and exultant, though Death in a grey friar’s frock raged to and fro beyond the water. Fulk closed the heavy, nail-studded door of the hall, and, standing on a stool, took a look at the enemy through one of the narrow windows.
There were about twenty men on the farther bank, thorough rapscallions and cut-throats, all of them, whom Guy the Stallion and the Polecat had got together. Merlin was walking up and down like a grey wolf behind the bars of a cage. Fulk saw Guy the Stallion to the front as usual, cocking his red beard fiercely, with that hacked old sword of his over his shoulder.
They seemed undecided and ready to argue among themselves, while Merlin cursed them because they were not savage enough to suit his temper. He kept showing them his right hand, a gesture that puzzled Fulk, and pointing them across the water, but these rats would not or could not swim.
Fulk stepped down from the stool.