Acour stood before Murgh like a criminal before his judge.
"Man," said the awful figure addressing him, "where have you been and what have you done since last we spoke together in the midday dark at Venice?"
Now, dragged word by slow word from his unwilling lips, came the answer of the traitor"s heart.
"I fled from the field at Venice because I feared this knight, and you, O Spirit of Death. I journeyed to Avignon, in France, and there strove to possess myself of yonder woman whom here in England, with the help of one Nicholas, I had wed, when she was foully drugged. I strove to possess myself of her by fraud and by violence. But some fate was against me. She and that aged priest bribed the knave whom I trusted. He caused a dead man and woman dressed in their garments to be borne from their lodging to the plague pit while they fled from Avignon disguised."
Here for a moment Grey d.i.c.k paused from his labours at the grave and looked up at Hugh. Then he fell to them again, throwing out the peaty soil with both hands.
"My enemy and his familiar, for man he can scarcely be," went on Acour, pointing first to Hugh and then to d.i.c.k, "survived all my plans to kill them and instead killed those whom I had sent after them. I learned that the woman and the priest were not dead, but fled, and followed them, and after me came my enemy and his familiar. Twice we pa.s.sed each other on the road, once we slept in the same house. I knew them but they knew me not and the Fate which blinded me from them, saved them also from all my plots to bring them to their doom. The woman and the priest took ship to England, and I followed in another ship, being made mad with desire and with jealous rage, for there I knew my enemy would find and win her. In the darkness before this very dawn I overtook the woman and the priest at last and set my fellows on to kill the man. Myself I would strike no blow, fearing lest my death should come upon me, and so I should be robbed of her. But G.o.d fought with His aged servant who in his youth was the first of knights. He slew my men, then fled on with the woman, Eve of Clavering. I followed, knowing that he was sore wounded and must die, and that then the beauty which has lured me to shame and ruin would be mine, if only for an hour. I followed, and here at this place of evil omen, where first I saw my foe, I found _you_, O Incarnate Sword of Vengeance."
Murgh unfolded his bare arms and lifted his head, which was sunk upon his breast.
"Your pardon," he said gently, "my name is Hand of Fate and not Sword of Vengeance. There is no vengeance save that which men work upon themselves. What fate may be and vengeance may be I know not fully, and none will ever know until they have pa.s.sed the Gateway of the G.o.ds.
Archer the grave is deep enough. Come forth now and let us learn who it is decreed shall fill it. Knights, the hour is at hand for you to finish that which you began at Crecy and at Venice."
Hugh heard and drew his sword. Acour drew his sword also, then cried out, pointing to Grey d.i.c.k:
"Here be two against one. If I conquer he will shoot me with his bow."
"Have no fear, Sir Thief and Liar," hissed Grey d.i.c.k, "for that shaft will not be needed. Slay the master if you can and go safe from the squire," and he unstrung his black bow and hid it in its case.
Now Hugh stepped to where Red Eve stood, the wounded Sir Andrew leaning on her shoulder. Bending down he kissed her on the lips, saying:
"Soon, very soon, my sweet, whom I have lost and found again, you will be mine on earth, or I shall be yours in heaven. This, then, in greeting or farewell."
"In greeting, beloved, not in farewell," she answered as she kissed him back, "for if you die, know that I follow hard upon your road. Yet I say that yonder grave was not dug for you."
"Nay, not for you, son, not for you," said Sir Andrew lifting his faint head. "One fights for you whom you do not see, and against Him Satan and his servant cannot stand," and letting fall the sword hilt he stretched out his thin hand and blessed him.
Now when Acour saw that embrace his jealous fury prevailed against his fears. With a curse upon his lips he leapt at Hugh and smote, thinking to take him unawares. But Hugh was watching, and sprang back, and then the fray began, if fray it can be called.
A wild joy shining in his eyes, Hugh grasped his long sword with both hands and struck. So great was that blow that it bit through Acour"s armour, beneath his right arm, deep into the flesh and sent him staggering back. Again he struck and wounded him in the shoulder; a third time and clove his helm so that the blood poured down into his eyes and blinded him.
Back reeled Acour, back to the very edge of the grave, and stood there swaying to and fro. At the sight of his helplessness Hugh"s fury seemed to leave him. His lifted sword sank downward.
"Let G.o.d deal with you, knave," he said, "for I cannot."
For a while there was silence. There they stood and stared at the smitten man waiting the end, whatever it might be. They all stared save Murgh, who fixed his stony eyes upon the sky.
Presently it came. The sword, falling from Acour"s hand into the grave, rested there point upward. With a last effort he drew his dagger.
Dashing the blood from his eyes, he hurled it with all his dying strength, not at Hugh, but at Red Eve. Past her ear it hissed, severing a little tress of her long hair, which floated down on to the snow.
Then Acour threw his arms wide and fell backward--fell backward and vanished in the grave.
d.i.c.k ran to look. There he lay dead, pierced through back and bosom by the point of his own sword.
For one brief flash of time a black dove-shaped bird was seen hovering round the head of Murgh.
"Finished!" said d.i.c.k straightening himself. "Well, I had hoped to see a better fight, but cowards die as cowards live."
Leaning on Red Eve"s shoulder Sir Andrew limped to the side of the grave. They both looked down on that which lay therein.
"Daughter," said the old man, "through many dangers it has come about as I foretold. The bond that in your drugged sleep bound you to this highborn knave is severed by G.o.d"s sword of death. Christ have pity on his sinful soul. Now, Sir Hugh de Cressi, come hither and be swift, for my time is short."
Hugh obeyed, and at a sign took Eve by the hand. Then, speaking very low and as quickly as he might for all his life was draining from him through the red wound in his side, the old priest spoke the hallowed words that bound these two together till death should part them. Yes, there by the graveside, over the body of the dead Acour, there in the red light of the morning, amidst the lonely snows, was celebrated the strangest marriage the world has ever seen. In nature"s church it was celebrated, with the grim, grey Archer for a clerk, and Death"s own fearful minister for congregation.
It was done and with uplifted, trembling hands Sir Andrew blessed them both--them and the fruit of their bodies which was to be. He blessed them in the name of the all-seeing G.o.d he served. He bade them put aside their grief for those whom they had lost. Soon, he said, their short day done, the lost would be found again, made glorious, and with them himself, who, loving them both on earth, would love them through eternity.
Then, while their eyes grew blind with tears, and even the fierce archer turned aside his face, Sir Andrew staggered to where he stood who in the Land of Sunrise had been called Gateway of the G.o.ds. Before him he bent his grey and ancient head.
"O thou who dwellest here below to do the will of heaven, to thee I come as once thou badest me," he said, and was silent.
Murgh let his eyes rest on him. Then stretching out his hand, he touched him very gently on the breast, and as he touched him smiled a sweet and wondrous smile.
"Good and faithful servant," he said, "thy work is done on earth. Now I, whom all men fear, though I be their friend and helper, am bidden by the Lord of life and death to call thee home. Look up and pa.s.s!"
The old priest obeyed. It seemed to those who watched that the radiance on the face of Murgh had fallen upon him also. He smiled, he stretched his arms upward as though to clasp what they might not see. Then down he sank gently, as though upon a bed, and lay white and still in the white, still snow.
The Helper turned to the three who remained alive.
"Farewell for a little time," he said. "I must be gone. But when we meet again, as meet we shall, then fear me not, for have you not seen that to those who love me I am gentle?"
Hugh de Cressi and Red Eve made no answer, for they knew not what to say. But Grey d.i.c.k spoke out boldly.
"Sir Lord, or Sir Spirit," he said, "save once at the beginning, when the arrow burst upon my string, I never feared you. Nor do I fear your gifts," and he pointed to the grave and to dead Sir Andrew, "which of late have been plentiful throughout the world, as we of Dunwich know.
Therefore I dare to ask you one question ere we part for a while. Why do you take one and leave another? Is it because you must, or because every shaft does not hit its mark?"
Now Murgh looked him up and down with his sunken eyes, then answered:
"Come hither, archer, and I will lay my hand upon your heart also and you shall learn."
"Nay," cried Grey d.i.c.k, "for now I have the answer to the riddle, since I know you cannot lie. When we die we still live and know; therefore I"m content to wait."
Again that smile swept across Murgh"s awful face though that smile was cold as the winter dawn. Then he turned and slowly walked away toward the west.
They watched him go till he became but a blot of fantastic colour that soon vanished on the moorland.
Hugh spoke to Red Eve and said:
"Wife, let us away from this haunted place and take what joy we can. Who knows when Murgh may return again and make us as are all the others whom we love!"
"Ay, husband won at last," she answered, "who knows? Yet, after so much fear and sorrow, first I would rest a while with you."
So hand in hand they went till they, too, grew small and vanished on the snowy marsh.