stomach for a fight with three unwounded men. Hence it was narrowed now
to a bold sortie for the horses, and this I made while yet the captain
hung in air and sought his foothold.

With all my breathless haste it was not done too soon, nor soon enough.
When I had quickly freed a horse from the dead hand that held it
tethered, and was making shift to climb into the saddle, they thronged
upon me; the captain from his window, the others pouring hotly through
the gaping doorway.

I made shift to get astride the horse, to prick the poor beast with the
point of sword, and so to break away in some brief dash beneath the
oaks. But it was a chase soon ended. As I remember, I was reeling in the
saddle what time the foremost of them overtook me. I held on grimly till
the horse pursuing lapped the one I rode by head, by neck and presently
by withers. Then I turned and would be making frantic-feeble passes with
the sword at the man upon his back.

It was my plotting captain who rode me thus to earth; and when I thrust
he laughed and swore, and turned the blade aside with his bare hand.
Then, pressing closer, he struck me with his fist, and thereupon the
night and all its happenings went blank as if the blow had been a cannon
shot to crush my skull.




VIII

IN WHICH I TASTE THE QUALITY OF MERCY