“Art quick or dead?” he answered. “I will not fight the dead.” He had not moved in his seat, and there was a lethargy and a dullness in his voice and eyes. “There is time enough,” he said. “I too will soon be of thy world, thou haggard, bloody shape. Wait until I come, and I will fight thee, shadow to shadow.” “I am not dead,” I said, “but there is one that is. Stand up, villain and murderer, or I will kill you sitting there, with her blood upon your hands!” He rose at that, and drew his dagger from the sheath. I laid aside my doublet, and he followed my example, but his hands moved listlessly and his fingers bungled at the fastenings. I waited for him in some wonder, it not being like him to come tardily to such pastime. He came at length, slowly and with an uncertain step, and we stood together on the scarlet cloak. I raised my left arm and he raised his, and we locked hands. There was no strength in his clasp; his hand lay within mine cold and languid. “Art ready?” I demanded. “Yea,” he answered in a strange voice, “but I would that she did not stand there with her head upon your breast.... I too loved thee, Jocelyn,--Jocelyn lying dead in the forest!” I struck at him with the dagger in my right hand, and wounded him, but not deeply, in the side. He gave blow for blow, but his poniard scarce drew blood, so nerveless was the arm that would have driven it home. I struck again, and he stabbed weakly at the air, then let his arm drop to his side, as though the light and jeweled blade had weighed it down. Loosening the clasp of our left hands, I fell back until the narrow scarlet field was between us. “Hast no more strength than that?” I cried. “I cannot murder you!” He stood looking past me as into a great distance. He was bleeding, but I had as yet been able to strike no mortal blow. “It is as you choose,” he said. “I am as one bound before you. I am sick unto death.” Turning, he went back, swaying as he walked, to his chair, and sinking into it sat there a minute with half-closed eyes; then raised his head and looked at me, with a shadow of the old arrogance, pride, and disdain upon his scarred face. “Not yet, captain?” he demanded. “To the heart, man! So I would strike an you sat here and I stood there.” “I know you would,” I said, and going to the window I flung the dagger down into the empty street; then stood and watched the smoke across the river, and thought it strange that the sun shone and the birds sang. When I turned to the room again, he still sat there in the great chair, a tragic, splendid figure, with his ruined face and the sullen woe of his eyes. “I had sworn to kill you,” I said. “It is not just that you should live.”