The man came up like a wind through the grass, and drew rein roughly some ten paces away. He laughed as he stared at Igraine, an uncouth, angering laugh like the yapping of a dog. He looked big and burly in the saddle, and the muscles stood out in his neck as he tilted his square jaw and stared down at his wife. Igraine had not looked upon his face since he had been smitten in battle. Its ugliness seemed to match his soul. Gorlois lifted up his voice and mocked her. "Ha, my brave, you are trapped, are you? Mother of God, but you make a good figure of a man. These many months I have missed you, wife in arms. And you have served in the pay of my lord the King. Good service and good pay, I warrant, and plenty of plunder. I will have that harness of yours hung over my bed." Igraine suffered him not so much as a word. She was furious, and in no mood to be scoffed down and cowed by mere insolent strength. She looked into Gorlois's libidinous face from behind the vizor of her helmet, and thought her thoughts. Gorlois ran on in his mocking fashion. His bronzed face gleamed with sweat, and a rough lascivious smile showed up his strong white teeth to her. "Ha, now, madame! deliver, and let us have sight of you. The King loves your lips, eh! They are red, and your arms are soft. I warrant he found your bosom a good pillow. Uther was ever such a solemn soul, such a monk, such a father. It is good for the heart to hear of him knotted up in a woman's hair." Igraine shook with the immensity of her hate. "You were ever a foul-tongued hound," she said. "Am I your echo?" "I wish you were dead." "So said the King." "So you spied on us?" Gorlois set up a scoffing laugh, showing his red throat like a hungry bird. "And saw my wife the King's courtezan; ha, what a jest! Come, madame, let us be going; your honest home waits for you. I will chatter to you of moralities by the way." He had hardly delivered himself of the saying, when Igraine's hand clutched at the handle of her sword. She jerked the spurs in with her heels. Her grey horse started forward like a bolt; blundered into Gorlois; caught him cross-counter, and rolled his white stallion down into the grass. Igraine had lashed out at the shock. Her sword caught Gorlois's arm, and cut through sleeve and arm-guard to the bone. As he rolled with his horse in the grass, she wheeled round, and clapping in the spurs, rode hard uphill for the forest. Gorlois, hot as a furnace, scrambled to his feet, and dragged his horse up by the bridle. Half off the saddle, with empty stirrups dangling, he went at a canter for the yawn of the wood. His slashed arm burnt as though it had been touched with a branding-iron; blood dripped down upon his horse's white shoulder. He was soon steady in the saddle and galloping full pelt after Igraine, the ground slipping under his horse's hoofs like water, the long grass flying like spray.