Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/545

Rh Take her, Majesty, before I repent me of this mad work! Also gag her if you would be in peace." And I laughed again as I took the girl into my arms and swung her lightly up against my shoulder.

"Ha!" said Aziliçz of Landévennec. "Here's a man, at least!" And, her right hand being free, she reached to the dagger which hung at my belt, and with it struck downward back over my shoulder. The point caught in a link of my steel shirt and snapped, and the girl cried out in baffled anger.

Just then a boy holding a flaring torch halted for a moment beside us, and the Countess, catching sight of my face in the red light of it, broke off her cry very suddenly, and I felt her tense body all at once slacken and droop in my arms.

"You?" said Aziliçz of Landévennec, in a gasping whisper. "You—you?"

"There was no other way, lady," said I. And after that she said nothing more—made no further movement to escape, while I bore her up from the beach to the castle and into it and up many stairs to the tower chamber, where old Rozennik had sat in the afternoon, telling tales over her spinning to the little maid Genofa. There I set her gently down, and, turning, barred the door behind us. When I faced her once more she had taken a few steps to the farther side of the chamber and stood, drooping a bit—woman now, caged and helpless, tigress no longer—against the wall, where hung a great square of faded tapestry wrought with ladies and with knights and with spears and hunting-dogs, in dull blue and gold.

"You!" said Aziliçz of Landévennec, once more, looking at me under her brows. And once more I said,—

"Lady, there was no other way." And again she was silent.

Now indeed was my hour come after so long waiting and watching and dreaming on my tower top. Now was my scornful beauty won at last to me—shut within my own tower, delivered into my hands. Now indeed was the cup of ecstasy held at last to my parched lips, which had thought to drain it so eagerly. But the triumph died in me at the sight of that helpless girl drooping forlorn against the tapestried wall. No tigress here! Nay, a woman alone and friendless, with no hand to lift a sword for her. Triumph died and shame awoke, crimsoning my face and brow.

"Oh, lady!" said I, yet again, "there was no other way."

"And this," she said, after a pause—"this tower to which you have brought me—this is the Tévennec?"

"Yes," said I. "Yes."

"And your—meaning, my lord," she said, very low, "is it marriage, now that you have me in your stronghold, or is it worse still?"

"Oh, lady!" I cried, and the pain in my voice must have reached her—"oh, lady, you wrong me cruelly! It is marriage I would have—honorable, faithful marriage by holy Church—ring and book. I have loved you since that day on the Pointe du Raz a year gone by, when I saw how beautiful you were and how unafraid. I've dreamed of you night and day till I could think of nothing else. I have stood on the tower top above us here looking across the sea toward Landévennec till my eyes were blinded with watching, and I've tossed upon my bed o' nights, unsleeping, till the wind tearing past my windows has shouted your name in to me, and I have thought that I was going mad. I sent messengers to you, begging to be received, but you sent them back to me with mockery. Oh, my lady, I love you and have long loved you as much as a man may love and still live! It is marriage I would have! Holy Church—ring and book."

"I would greatly prefer death, my lord," said Aziliçz of Landévennec, and I saw one hand go to the dagger-sheath which swung empty at her girdle, and drop away again in despair.

It was a warm night, and one of the narrow windows of the tower chamber, facing westward over the sea, had been left open. A soft, sweet air, rich with the savor of the sea, bore in out of the night, and the low, regular plash of waves upon the tower's foot came faintly up to our ears.

The girl moved across toward this window as if she would breathe the cool night air. I think it was an instant's backward glance she gave, a certain strained tenseness of bearing, that warn-