ere nowhere--they were
behind his back! God alone knows why he had not murdered me. To keep
Chartersea between him and me I swung another quarter. The duke seemed
to see my game, struggled against it, tried to rush in under my guard,
made a vicious lunge that would have ended me then and there had he not
slipped. We were both panting like wild beasts. When next I raised my
eyes Lewis had faded into the darkness. Then I felt my head as wet as
from a plunge, the water running on my brow, and my back twitching.
Every second I thought the sting of his sword was between my ribs. But
to forsake the duke would have been the maddest of follies.

In that moment of agony came footsteps beating on the path, and by tacit
consent our swords were still. We listened.

"Richard! Richard Carvel!"

For the second time in my life I thanked Heaven for that brave and loyal
English heart. I called back, but my throat was dry and choked.

"So they are at their d--d assassins' tricks again! You need have no
fear of one murderer."

With that their steels rang out behind me, like broadswords, Lewis
wasting his breath in curses and blasphemies. I began to push Chartersea
with all my might, and the wonder of it was that we did not fight with
our fingers on each other's necks. His attacks, too, redoubled. Twice
I felt the stings of his point, once in the hand, and once in the body,
but I minded them as little as pinpricks. I was sure I had touched him,
too. I heard him blowing distressedly. The casks of wine he had drunk
in his short life were telling now, and his thrusts grew weaker. That
fiercest of all joys--of killing an enemy--was in me, when I heard a cry
that rang in my ears for many a year afterward, and the thud of a body
on the ground.

"I have done for him, your Grace," says Lewis, with an oath; and added
immediately, "I think I hear people."

Before I had reached my Lord the captain repeated this, and excitedly
begged the duke, I believe, to fly. Chartersea hissed out that he would
not move a step until he had finished me, and as I bent over the body
his point popped through my coat, and the pain shot under my shoulder. I
staggered, and fell. A second of silence ensued, when the duke said with
a laugh that was a cackle:

"He won't marry her, d--n him!" (panting). "He had me cursed near
killed, Lewis. Best give him another for luck."

I felt his heavy hand on the sword, and it tearing out of me. Next came
the single word "Dove