“Leave me, Tristan,” she said again. “You can outpace them alone; I am their prize. They are ten to one; what can you do against ten men?”
“We shall see,” he said through his set teeth.
She surrendered for the moment, and clung to his shoulders. An open glade broadened sudden towards the east, a great star shining splendid in the eastern sky. Rosamunde, clinging fast to Tristan as they swayed along, heard a great trampling of hoofs in the wood. The nearest galloper swung out from the gloom. He was leaning over the neck of his horse, his lips parted over his teeth, his sword poised from his outstretched arm.
“Halt!”
Tristan glanced at him as they rode cheek by jowl, their horses plunging down the glade.
“Hold off!” he shouted.
“Halt, or I strike the woman first!”
“Be damned for a dastard, if you dare!”
The sword circled above Rosamunde’s head, its whistling breath fanning her hair. She cowered a little and loosened her hold. Tristan swerved of a sudden, drew up his horse on sluthering hoofs.
“Off—off!” he roared.