even more than his deformity compelled, his white teeth showed in a
grimace of hatred; he was half-crouched, like an animal ready to spring.

"Take up the sword, or I'll run you through the heart where you stand,"
he continued, in a hoarse whisper. "I will give you till I can count
three. Then by the God in Heaven--!"

Fournel felt that he had to deal with a man demented. The blow he had
received had laid open the flesh on his cheek-bone, and blood was flowing
from the wound. Never in his life before had he been so humiliated. And
by a Frenchman--it roused every instinct of race-hatred in him. Yet he
wanted not to go at him with a sword, but with his two honest hands,
and beat him into a whining submission. But the man was deformed,
he had none of his own robust strength--he was not to be struck,
but to be tossed out of the way like an offending child.

He staunched the blood from his face and made a step forward without a
word, determined not to fight, but to take the weapon from the other's
hands. "Coward!" said the Seigneur. "You dare not fight with the
sword. With the sword we are even. I am as strong as you there--
stronger, and I will have your blood. Coward! Coward! Coward! I will
give you till I count three. One! . . . Two! . . ."

Fournel did not stir. He could not make up his mind what to do. Cry
out? No one could come in time to prevent the onslaught--and onslaught
there would be, he knew. There was a merciless hatred in the Seigneur's
face, a deadly purpose in his eyes; the wild determination of a man who
did not care whether he lived or died, ready to throw himself upon a
hundred in his hungry rage. It seemed so mad, so monstrous, that the
beautiful summer day through which came the sharp whetting of the scythe,