What boots it to tell how Tristan swam the mere, and brought back the boat over the water? It was sword and spear for the brown beasts of the forest. Only when Tristan’s men entered the great gate did the unhallowed horror of the place give them the challenge. A few wolves still lurked amid the dead, the shredded relics of that night of slaughter. Tristan had the gates clapped to after they had put these last beasts to the sword, for fire alone could purge such a charnel house.
In the wall of the garden there was a little postern, its lock and bolts glued by the rust of years. Tristan broke the gate down with an axe, and, pushing in over the broken wood, found the garden within calm and green, unsullied by death or by the beasts of the forest.
His men had remained without the gate, prompted by a rough chivalry that gave Tristan honour. On the top step of the stair that led from the upper room stood a woman clad in a black robe, her hair loose upon her shoulders. There were deep shadows under her eyes, and her face was white as the face of the moon.
Tristan stood at the foot of the stairway with the axe still gripped in his great brown hands. It was not the Tristan who had served of old, but rather a man whose neck was stubborn, a man whose pride would suffer no yoke. The eyes that searched the woman’s face were sterner than those she had known of yore.
“Madame,” he said to her almost roughly, “you are free once more to go where you will. By God’s good providence, I have cheated death for you.”
She swayed a little where she stood as she looked down on him and watched his face.
“I am ever your debtor,” she said slowly.
“I claim no usury,” he answered her, with a queer smile; “what is duty to me comes as a mere command.”
“Tristan——”
“Madame——”