"Lord," she asked in a tremble, "what wilt thou do?"
"Do!" he cried; "are there so many things to do? You are not afraid,
child?"
"No, lord, I am not afraid," she replied, and looked down at her belt.
"Now, Isoult," said Prosper, "you are to stay here on your beast while
I go down and clear the road."
She obeyed him at once, and sat very still looking at Galors and at
Prosper, who rode forward to the level ground by the ford. There he
stopped to see what the other man would be at. Galors played the
impenetrable part which had served him so well with the Abbot Richard,
in other words, did nothing but sit where he was with his spear erect,
like a bronze figure on a bridge. Impassivity had always been the
strength of Galors; women had bruised themselves against it: but
Prosper had little to do with women's ways.
"Sir, why do you bar my passage?" he sang out, irrepressibly cheerful
at present. Galors never answered him a word. Prosper divined him at
this; he was to climb the hill, and so be at the double disadvantage
of having no spear and of being below him that had one. "The pale
rascal means to make this a game of skittles," he thought to himself.
"We shall see, my man. In the mean time I wish I knew your shield." So
saying he forded the brook, stayed, called out again, "Whose shield is
that, Galors?" and again got no reply. "Black dog!" cried he in a
rage, "take your vantage and expect no more." Whereupon he set his
horse at the hill and rode up with his shield before him.
The black knight feutred his spear, clapped spurs to his horse's
flanks, and bore down the hill. He rode magnificently: horse and man
had the impetus of a charging bull, and it looked ill for the man
below. But Prosper had learned a trick from his father, which he in
turn had had at Acre from the Moslems in one of the intervals of the
business there. In those days men fought like heroes, but between
whiles remembered that they were gentlemen and good fellows pitted
against others equally happy in these respects.
The consequence was that many a throat was cut by many a hand which
the day before had poured out wine for its delight, and nobody was any
the worse. The infidels loved Mahomet, but they loved a horse too, and
Baron Jocelyn was not the man to forget a lesson in riding. So soon,
therefore, as Galors was upon him, Prosper slid his left foot from the
stirrup and slipt round his horse almost to the belly, clinging with
his shield arm to the bow of the saddle. The spear struck his shield
at a tangent and glanced off. It was a bad miss for Galors, since
horse and man drove down the incline and were floundering in the brook
before they could stay. Prosper whipped round to see Galors mired, was
close on his quarter and had cut through the shank of the spear, close
to the guard, in a trice.