Part 46

The fighting had begun again; no man could say why or how. True, the Doomsmen had been disheartened by the fall of their champion, but they were not yet ready to yield themselves; they had retreated to the shelter of the interior barricade, and would make there a final stand. The Stockaders, flushed with anticipated triumph, drove blindly, recklessly at the barrier. Constans felt the blood singing in his ears, then a weight suddenly lifted from his brain; his eyes cleared and the fierce joy of conflict captured him. He forced his way to the front, gaining foothold on the barricade. Ten feet away stood Quinton Edge, and Constans's heart was glad. At last!

A hand caught at the skirt of his doublet, and impatiently he jerked himself loose. Again the detaining grasp; he bent down to strike and looked into Ulick's eyes. Obedient to the unspoken request, he knelt down and tried to move his friend into a more comfortable position. The crushed chest sank horribly under his hands, and he was obliged to give over.

"Close to me," whispered Ulick, and Constans bent his head to listen.

"It is of Esmay," he said. "Nanna but just now told me--a prisoner--Arcadia House--you will go to her?"

"Yes," said Constans.

But Ulick had followed the direction of his eyes and seen that they rested on Quinton Edge.

"At once; it must be now--else too late."

Constans did not answer.

"Now!" reiterated Ulick, insistently.

"I cannot."

"Yes."

"I will not."

"Yes."

Constans's voice was hard; he rose to his feet.

"I have been waiting upon this chance for years--you do not understand."

"Yes--I understand."

"All along; it was you who loved her."

"But you--whom she loved."

"No," said Constans, sullenly.

"It is--true."

"No!" again cried Constans. Then, suddenly, it seemed that a great light shone about him. But the wonder of it lay not in this new knowledge of Esmay's heart, but in the revelation of his own. He loved her, he knew it now, and not as in that brief moment of passion at Arcadia, when even honor seemed well lost. For this was the greater love that draws a man to the one woman in the world who has the power to lift him to the heights whereon she herself stands. A supreme joy, that humbled even while it exalted, swept over Constans. "I will go," he said, and took Ulick's hand in both his own.

The storm-centre of the fighting had moved away from them; above their heads the stars shone serenely. Constans could not speak, but he pointed them out to his friend.

* * * * *

Piers Minor, fighting in the press at the gate as became his stout breed, chanced to rescue a boy from being crushed to death. The lad had been crowded up against a projecting angle and was quite breathless when the Stockader, arching his back against the pressure, broke the jam by sheer strength and pulled the stripling out of his dangerous position. But what a fine color came back into the white cheeks as the twain recognized each other!

"You!" said Nanna, and at that moment she would have given all she possessed in the world for just a skirt.

"You!" re-echoed Piers Minor, and immediately a horrible dumbness fell upon him.

The thunder of the captains and the shouting filled their ears, but they heard not, the red light of battle danced before their eyes, but they saw not. Some miracle swept them clear of the struggle, and guided them to the shelter afforded by a half-completed barricade of ox-carts. And here Piers Minor, seeing that she trembled and edged closer to him like any ordinary woman, took on a wonderful accession of courage.

"Little one!" he murmured, in his big, bass voice, and laughed contentedly, just as though death were not standing at his other elbow. But then Piers Minor was not a man to think of more than one thing at a time.