came upon the back of his
hand, and lo! his sword fell from it to the grass. But I did not spare
him because of that, for my blood was up. The next stroke took him on
the lips, knocking out a tooth and sending him backwards. Then I caught
him by the leg and beat him most unmercifully, not upon the head indeed,
for now that I was victor I did not wish to kill one whom I thought a
madman as I would that I had done, but on every other part of him.

Indeed I thrashed him till my arms were weary and then I fell to kicking
him, and all the while he writhed like a wounded snake and cursed
horribly, though he never cried out or asked for mercy. At last I ceased
and looked at him, and he was no pretty sight to see--indeed, what with
his cuts and bruises and the mire of the roadway, it would have been
hard to know him for the gallant cavalier whom I had met not five
minutes before. But uglier than all his hurts was the look in his wicked
eyes as he lay there on his back in the pathway and glared up at me.

'Now, friend Spaniard,' I said, 'you have learned a lesson; and what is
there to hinder me from treating you as you would have dealt with me
who had never harmed you?' and I took up his sword and held it to his
throat.

'Strike home, you accursed whelp!' he answered in a broken voice; 'it is
better to die than to live to remember such shame as this.'

'No,' I said, 'I am no foreign murderer to kill a defenceless man. You
shall away to the justice to answer for yourself. The hangman has a rope
for such as you.'

'Then you must drag me thither,' he groaned, and shut his eyes as though
with faintness, and doubtless he was somewhat faint.

Now as I pondered on what should be done with the villain, it chanced
that I looked up through a gap in the fence, and there, among the
Grubswell Oaks three hundred yards or more away, I caught sight of the
flutter of a white robe that I knew well, and it seemed to me that the
wearer of that robe was moving towards the bridge of the 'watering' as
though she were weary of waiting for one who did not come.

Then I thought to myself that if I stayed to drag this man to the
village stocks or some other safe place, there would be an end of
meeting with my love that day, and I did not know when I might find
another chance. Now I would not have missed that hour's talk with Lily
to bring a score of murderous-minded foreigners to their deserts, and,
moreover, this one had earned good payment for h