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"Nonsense, man; what are you thinking of? You will be riding hence in three days' time, when Sir Randolph is released." Evander shook his head. "Sir Randolph will not be released," he said. The quiet positiveness in his tone staggered Halfman. Stooping, with his hands resting on his knees, his unquiet eyes stared into Evander's quiet eyes. "Sir Randolph will not be released!
"You are in the right," Evander answered, "and I ask your lady's pardon if for a moment I forgot where I am and why." "Yah, yah, fox," grinned Sir Blaise, who believed that his enemy was glad to be out of the quarrel. But Halfman, who knew better, smiled. "There are other ways," he suggested, pleasantly, "by which two gentlemen may void their spleen without drawing their toasting-irons.
She knew there was some manner of mystification forward and yearned for the key to it. "He chafes in the music-chamber." "Send him here top-speed," Brilliana commanded. With a whisk of flying skirts Tiffany scuttered back to the house, and Brilliana turned to Halfman, the laughter in her eyes seeking and finding the laughter in his. "Well," she said, "our angling prospers blithely.
Halfman sank down under the water from the force of the fall, but before he touched the bottom a fish came and said to him, 'Fear nothing, Halfman; I will help you. And the fish guided him to a shallow place, so that he scrambled out. On the way it said to him, 'Do you understand what your brothers, whom you saved from death, have done to you? 'Yes; but what am I to do? asked Halfman.
"Why not let them kill each other?" he suggested, blandly. Blaise lifted his hands in horror. "Friend," he said, "in this mission I am a man of peace. Will you acquaint your lady?" Halfman grunted acquiescence. "Oh, ay; bring in your boobies." He turned on his heel and swung out through the doorway into the garden.
"So may you serve it out with all despatch." Brilliana dropped her hands to her sides and her lids over her eyes, a pretty picture of despair; but, "Alas! 'tis all white," she confessed "wool white, snow white, ermine white. You must needs have patience, good recruiting-sergeant, till I can have it dyed the royal red." Halfman pushed patience from him with outspread palms.
Evander answered his words and unconsciously his thoughts. "I should not have taken up arms if I held my life too precious. It will need three days to get the answer, the inevitable answer, and in the mean time the autumn air is kind and these gardens delightful." Halfman stared at him in an ecstasy of admiration, and then dealt him an applauding clap on the shoulder.
They moved over danceable lawns or under the canopies of dim avenues, chattering of arms, till the soft October air tingled with the names of famous fencers, and Halfman was in fancy a lubber lad again at his first passado. But his wonder grew with their wanderings. They paused at the bowling-green and played a game which Evander won.
Halfman hurriedly bolted a goodly slice of ham lest it should choke him while he laughed, which he now did heartily, lolling back in his chair. He was honestly amused, and yet it seemed to Evander as if there were something in his strange friend's mirth which was carefully calculated to produce its effect.
How these old hawks will fly at each other when we unhood them." "Trust me, lady," said Halfman. "I have been a play-actor and know how to stage a pair of gabies to the show." He saluted her and made to depart. She had learned to like his company through the long days of siege, and this dull day of quiet she felt lonely.
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