"Entra per me," he read. "Enter I will," said Prosper, "and by
you. This device," he went on, as he fitted the cuisses, "this
device is not very worthy of Dom Galors. It speaks of hurry. It
speaks, even, of precipitation, for if he must needs wear my harness,
at least he might have carried his own. Galors was flurried. If he was
flurried he must have had news. If, having news, he took my arms, it
must have been news of Isoult. He intended to deceive her by passing
for me. Good; I will deceive his allies by passing for himself. But
first I must find Spiridion."
He had too much respect for his enemy, as you will observe if I have
made anything of Galors. Galors was no refiner, not subtle; he was
direct. When he had to think he held his tongue, so that you should
believe him profound. When he got a thought he made haste to act upon
it, because it really embarrassed him. None of Prosper's imaginings
were correct. If the monk had been capable of harbouring two thoughts
at a time, there would not have been a shred of mail in the room.
That sodden thing lipped by the restless water was Spiridion. He lay
on his back, thinner and more peaked than ever in life; his yellow
hair made him an aureole. He looked like some martyred ascetic, with
his tightened smile and the gash half-way through his neck.
Prosper leaned upon his punt-pole looking sorrowfully at him.
"Alas, my brother," he said half whimsically, "do you smile? Even so I
think God should smile that He had let such a thing be made. And if,
as I believe, you know the truth at last, that is why you also smile.
But shut your eyes, my brother," he added, stooping to do the office,
"shut your eyes, for you wore them thin with searching and now can see
without them. Let them rest."
Very tenderly he pulled him out of the water, very reverently took
him to land. He buried him before his own gates, and over him set the
crucifix, which in the end he had found grace to see. He was too good
a Christian not to pray over the grave, and not sufficient of a hero
to be frank about his tears. At the end of all this business he found
his horse. Then he rode off at a canter for Hauterive.
* * * * * It is one thing to kindle military fires in the breast of a High
Bailiff, quite another to bid them out. Prosper had overstepped his
authority. The High Bailiff of Wanmeeting held himself in check for
the better part of a week after his generalissimo's departure; at the
end of five days he could endure it no more. His harness clamoured,
his sword tarnished for blood; he had fifteen hundred men in steel.
That would mean fifteen hundred and one tarnishing blades, and the
unvoiced reproaches of fifteen hundred and one suits of mail. In a
word, the High Bailiff itched to try a fall with the redoubtable
Galors de Born.