“Fulk of the Forest, I play fair. Take your sword and rush out against these fellows yonder. But, before your hawk’s pride flies in the face of Fate, listen.” He did not move, but kept his eyes on hers. “Well?” “I offer you this sword of yours to prove that you do not know the temper of Isoult. Take the sword, play the madman if it pleases you; but I warn you it will make you look the greater fool. Those fellows yonder have had their orders, and each man has his bow. I have heard the orders that were given them, to keep clear, and shoot you through those long legs of yours so that you could neither run nor fight.” She took the sword by the scabbard and held the hilt towards him. “Choose.” He shrugged contemptuously. “A fool’s business. I can make nothing of it, save that these hedgers and ditchers and horse-thieves are the lords of the forest. Why am I so marked a stag?” “Because you are—what you are.” “More words.” She laid the sword on her knees, and bent towards him, pointing with one forefinger. “Listen to me, Fulk Ferrers. Have you been on a wild hill in the thick of a thunderstorm, when the sky is like the lid of a black hell and the lightning stabs the earth here, there, and everywhere? Have you not felt like a hare in the grass, a little thing of no account, a wisp of straw in the wind? But perhaps Messire Fulk Ferrers is too stiffnecked and proud to listen while the doom vault cracks over his head!” Her eyes were intensely black for the moment, her face the face of a witch. Fulk sat rigid, as though he listened to the sound of elf’s horns in the forest. “True; I have felt it,” he said. Her hand dropped to her knee. “Messire Fulk, you and I are but children on the edge of a strange, storm-swept country. We cannot help ourselves; we are but little people stumbling over the heather. You ask for the why and the wherefore, but it is not for me to answer the riddle for you. What am I but a storm bird blown by wild winds from over the sea? I tell you there is great wrath and dread and violence afoot. You are here because the chance has seized on you as a red shrike seizes a beetle for its larder.” Her face was a new world to him, intense and white, the red lips uttering words that made him think of the moan of a wind through winter trees, or the clang of swords in a charge of horsemen upon some sunset heath. His manhood bridled, and reared like a startled horse. This voice of hers had reached some primitive instinct in him. His mistrust passed of a sudden and gave place to wonder. “Strange words!” Her eyes flashed out at him. “You may go one way—I another. Someone will speak more plainly before many days have gone. Watch—consider. I know not how you may regard it—as a light adventure, a glorious treason. Do not mistrust me. I charge you, do not mistrust me!” He gave her a quick, ironical smile. “There is the beech wood yonder, and out of it will come a dragon, and I shall have no sword!” “No sword could help you.”