So far things had gone with an amazing and delightful ease. If only the last of them had had the amiability to be intimidated by my prowess and to have taken to his heels, I might have issued from that contest with the unscathed glory of a very Mars. But from his throat there came, in answer to his comrade’s cry, a roar of rage. He fell back from Madonna, and wheeled his horse to come at me, drawing his sword as he advanced. “Ride on, Madonna,” I shouted. “I will rejoin you presently.” The fellow laughed, a mighty ugly and discomposing laugh, which may or may not have shaken her faith in my promise to rejoin her. It certainly went near to shaking mine. However, she displayed a presence of mind full worthy of the haughtiness and ingratitude of which she had showed herself capable. She urged her mule forward, and, so, left him a clear road to attack me. I made a mistake then that went mighty near to costing me my life. I paused to twist my cloak about my left arm intending to use it as a buckler. Had I but risked the arm itself, all unprotected, in that task, it may well be that it had served me better. As it was, my preparations were far from complete when already he was upon me, with the result that the waving slack of my cloak was in my way to hamper and retard the movements of my arm. His sword leapt at me, a murderous blue-white flash of moonlit steel. I put up my half-swaddled arm to divert the thrust, holding my dagger ready in my right, and gripping my mule with all the strength of my two knees. I caught the blade, it is true, and turned aside the stroke intended for my heart. But the slack of the cloak clung to the neck of my mule, so that I could not carry my arm far enough to send his point clear of my body. It took me in the shoulder, stinging me, first icy cold then burning hot, as it went tearing its way through. For just a second was I daunted, more at knowing myself touched than by the actual pain. Then I flung my whole body forward to reach him at the close quarters to which he had come, and I buried my dagger in his breast, high up at the base of his dirty throat. The force of the blow carried me forward, even as it bore him backward; and so, with his sword-blade in my shoulder, and my dagger where I had planted it, we hurtled over together and lay a second amidst what seemed a forest of equine legs. Then something smote me across the head, and I was knocked senseless. Conceive me, if you can, a sorrier, or more useless thing. A senseless Fool! CHAPTER VI. FOOL’S LUCK