Chapter 32 - Page 2

for certain, if
ye set one foot before another, I will uplift my voice and call the
nearest post to seize you."

"Ye mock me," said Sir Daniel. "I have no safety out of Holywood."

"I care no more," returned Richard. "I let you go east, west, or
south; north I will not. Holywood is shut against you. Go, and
seek not to return. For, once ye are gone, I will warn every post
about this army, and there will be so shrewd a watch upon all
pilgrims that, once again, were ye the very devil, ye would find it
ruin to make the essay."

"Ye doom me," said Sir Daniel, gloomily.

"I doom you not," returned Richard. "If it so please you to set
your valour against mine, come on; and though I fear it be disloyal
to my party, I will take the challenge openly and fully, fight you
with mine own single strength, and call for none to help me. So
shall I avenge my father, with a perfect conscience."

"Ay," said Sir Daniel, "y' have a long sword against my dagger."

"I rely upon Heaven only," answered Dick, casting his sword some
way behind him on the snow. "Now, if your ill-fate bids you, come;
and, under the pleasure of the Almighty, I make myself bold to feed
your bones to foxes."

"I did but try you, Dickon," returned the knight, with an uneasy
semblance of a laugh. "I would not spill your blood."

"Go, then, ere it be too late," replied Shelton. "In five minutes
I will call the post. I do perceive that I am too long-suffering.
Had but our places been reversed, I should have been bound hand and
foot some minutes past."

"Well, Dickon, I will go," replied Sir Daniel. "When we next meet,
it shall repent you that ye were so harsh."

And with these words, the knight turned and began to move off under
the trees. Dick watched him with strangely-mingled feelings, as he
went, swiftly and warily, and ever and again turning a wicked eye
upon the lad who had spared him, and whom he still suspected.

There was upon one side of where he went a thicket, strongly matted
with green ivy, and, even in its winter state, impervious to the
eye. Herein, all of a sudden, a bow sounded like a note of music.
An arrow flew, and with a great, choked cry of agony and anger, the
Knight of Tunstall threw up his hands and fell forward in the snow.

Dick bounded to his side and raised him. His face desperately
worked; his whole body was shaken by contorting spasms.

"Is the arrow black?" he gasped.

"It is black," replied Dick, gravely.

And then, before he could add one word, a desperate seizure of pain
shook the wounded man from head to foot, so that his body leaped in
Dick's supporting arms, and with the extremity of that pang his
spirit fled in silence.

The