During this narration the Countess had risen slowly to her feet. She
was labouring under some stress which Prosper could not fathom. For a
little she stood, working her torture before him. Then she suddenly
smote herself on the breast and cried at him--"You have done more
misery than you can dream." And again she struck herself, and then,
coming down from her throne like a wild thing, she shrieked at him as
if possessed--"You fool, you fool! Look at me!"
He could not help himself; look he must. She came creeping up to him.
She caught at his two hands and peered into his face with her blind
eyes.
"Do you love Isoult, Prosper?"
He could hardly hear her. But he raised his head.
"By God and His Christ, I believe that I do," said he.
The Countess took a dagger from her girdle, unsheathed it, and put it
in his hand. She knelt down before him as a woman kneels to a saint in
a church. With a sudden frenzy she tore open the front of her gown so
that all her bosom was bare, and then as suddenly whipt her hands
behind her back.
"Now kill me, Prosper," she whined; "for I love thee, and I have
killed thy love Isoult."
So she bowed her head and waited.
But Prosper gave a terrible cry, and turned and left her kneeling. He
ran down the corridor blindly, not knowing how or whither he fared. At
the end of it was a door which gave on to the Minstrel Gallery over
the great hall. Into this trap he ran and fetched up against the
parapet. Below him in the hall were countless faces--as it seemed, a
sea of white faces, mouthing, jeering, and cursing. He stood glaring
blankly at them, fetching his breath. Words flew about--horrible! Out
of all he caught here and there a scrap, each tainted with hate and
unspeakable disgrace.
"Come down, thou polluter." Again, "Serve him like his wench."--
"Trounce him with his woman."--"Send the pair to hell!"
The dawning attention he began to pay sobered his panic, quenched it.
What he learned by listening struck him cold. He took pains; he could
hear every word now, surely. He was really very attentive. The
chartered rascals packed in the hall took this for irresolution, and
howled at him to their hearts' content. Once more Prosper held to his
motto--bided the time. The time came with the coming of Master Porges
--that smug and solemn man--into the assembly. The seneschal looked
round him with a benignant air, as who should say, "My children all!"
The listening man in the gallery watched all this.
Suddenly his sword flashed out. Prosper vaulted over the gallery,
dropped down into the thick of them, and began to kill. Kill indeed he
did. Right and left, like a man with a scythe, he sliced a way for
himself. There were soldiers, pikemen, and guards in the press: there
was none there so tall as he, nor with such a reach, above all, there
was none whose rage made him cold and his anger merry. However they
were, they could scarcely have faced the hard glitter of his blue
eyes, the smile of his fixed lips. He could have carved with a dagger,
with a bludgeon, a flail, or a whip. As it was, to a long arm was
added a long sword, which whistled through the air, but through flesh
went quiet. There had been blows at first from behind and at the side
of him. The long mowing arms stayed them. It became a butchery of
sheep before he was midway of the hall, thence the rest of his passage
to the door was between two huddled heaps, with not a flick in either.