Yet, in verity, I had no despair; but did be mixt in the heart with a
great fear for Mine Own, and a strange and exulting gladness that I
should do that day some deed for Mine Own Maid; and truly this to be the
pomp of love and the heart-cry of the barbarian, as you shall say. And
this maybe; but truly I did be proper human, and to make no excuse
because that I was natural; neither have I hid anywheres aught that I
did think and feel.
And whether that you approve or not, if that you condemn me, you to
condemn all Humanity, and to have vain words and vain regrettings; for
these things that be named for faults, do but be the complement of our
virtues, and if that you slay the first, you may chance to wither the
last; for now I speak of things as they be now, and as they did be then;
and nowise of lovely ideals that do live chief in the mind, and so much
in mine as any, as you to know, if that you have gone with me all along
my way.
And surely, I must cease from my thinkings, and go forward with my
telling; for the Humpt Men did come forward at a wondrous quick run, and
did swarm upward on to the rock, as that they did be panthers; and they
made no outcry; but came silent to the killing; and I saw that they did
be something smaller than he that I had but then slain. And, in verity,
I did be all knit in that moment with speed and cleverness; for I split
the heads of three, with but quick turns of my wrist, as I did wield the
Diskos. And I kicked the face of another, in the same time, with my
metal boot, so that he died; for there did be all my strength and all my
skill working then for our salvation.
Now all this to have been done in but a few beats of the heart, as I
might say; and these men to have been in the front of the attacking. Yet
there did be no space to have breath; for there leaped three more of the
Men upon the rock; and one smote me with a great piece of rock that he
carried, so that mine armour did seem as that it crackt, and I to be
driven backward upon the Maid; yet had slain one of the Humpt Men, even
in that moment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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