alfman's glare.

"Are you speaking to me, your superior?" he stammered. Halfman
answered him mockingly, with a voice that swelled in menace as the
taunting speech ran on.

"Will you ride against me, cross swords with me, come to grips with
me any way? You dare not. I am well born, have seen things, done
things 'twould make you shiver to hear of them. Come, I am in a
fiend's humor; come with your sword to the orchard and see which of
us is the better man."

Sir Blaise was in a fair panic at this raging fury he had conjured up
and now was fain to pacify.

"Soft, soft, honest captain; why so choleric? I would not wrong you.
But surely you do not think she favors this Puritan?"

"Oh, he's a proper man, damn him!" Halfman admitted. "He has a right
to a woman's liking. And he must love her, God help him! as every man
does that looks on her."

Blaise looked pathetic.

"What is there to do?" he asked, helplessly. Halfman struck his right
fist into his left palm.

"I would do something, I promise you. He is no immortal. But we shall
be rid of him soon. If Colonel Cromwell do not surrender Cousin
Randolph we are pledged to his killing, and if he do, then our friend
rejoins his army; and I pray the devil my master that I may have the
joy to pistol him on some stricken field."

Sir Blaise thought it was time to change the conversation.

"Let us leave these ravings and vaporings," he entreated, wheedling,
"and return to the business of life. And 'tis a very unpleasant
business I come on."

Halfman drew his hand across his forehead as a man who seeks to
dissipate ill dreams. Then, with a tranquil face, he gave Blaise the
attention he petitioned.

"How so?" he asked. Any business were a pleasing change from his sick
thoughts.

"Why, I am a justice of the peace for these parts," Sir Blaise said,
"and I am importuned by two honest neighbors to process of law
against your lady."

Halfman laughed unpleasantly.

"The Lady Brilliana's wish is the law of this country-side, I promise
you."

He grinned maliciously and fingered at his sword-hilt. Sir Blaise
felt exceedingly uncomfortable. Here was no promising beginning for a
solemn judicial errand. But the knight had a mighty high sense of his
own importance, and he felt himself shielded, as it were, from the
tempers of this fire-eater by the dignity of his office and the
majesty of the law. So he came to his business with a manner as
pompous as he could muster.

"Mas