Great was the temptation that assailed Tristan that night to take Rosamunde his love and to ride from Agravale, leaving the Southern Marches to their fate. He could overtake the Duchess in a day, and leave the future to her and the King. If Serjabil and his Saracens crossed the mountains, the King could gather his great vassals and give them battle in due season. Had he not done enough with his single sword?
But as great hearts rise to great needs, so Tristan cast the tempter out of his soul, and grew strong in the strength of heroic manhood. The shade of Samson seemed to walk at his side, Samson who had been crucified for Christ and the Cross, and who had met death, a living sacrifice. Should he not save these helpless peasant folk from the Saracen scimitars and the false creed of their Prophet? He would stand shamed before God when the villages flamed and the smoke of their burning ascended to heaven.
Tristan knelt down in the grass and prayed, with the deserted city silent under the moon and the great stars shining overhead.
“Lord Jesus,” he said, “I pray Thee pardon these weak thoughts that rose in my heart against my manhood and Thee. Grant me Thy grace to this good end that I may save these helpless ones who have sought my sword. Give me Thy strength against the heathen that I may quit myself as a Christian should.”
At midnight he went out from Lilias’s garden to the great hall where his men were gathered. Some were asleep on the rush-strewn floor, others were watching and talking together.
“Sirs,” he said, “how many will stand with me for the Holy Cross, and hold the passes till the Duchess comes?”
Every hand was stretched towards him; nor did they fail him, these iron men, who had followed Samson through the Seven Streams.
“God bless you all!” he cried, with a smile on his face. “Percival, take horse and ride after the Duchess. Tell her the Saracens are marching for the mountains, that we go to hold St. Isidore’s Gate. Ride, man, as though the devil rode at your heels. The Duchess will turn and give us succour.”
With the dawn came the great trial of Tristan’s strength, for Rosamunde was ignorant of what had passed, and it lay with Tristan to tell her the truth. Moreover, she had lived amid dreams since she had been brought from the Mad Mere into Agravale. For her life’s woes were at an end; she had forgotten that death still walked the earth.
She came to Tristan that morning in the garden, and found him pacing under the trees, fully harnessed, his sword at his side. There was that same grim earnestness upon his face that she had known of old when he had taken her to Holy Guard through the woods. As she came with her stately step over the grass betwixt the beds of balsams and the thickets of fruit trees her eyes grew dark under the sweep of her golden hair.