In which
act Denys started up and shot him through both jaws. He sprang with one
bound into the kitchen, and there leaned on his axe, spitting blood and
teeth and curses.
Denys strung his bow and put his hand into his breast.
He drew it out dismayed.
"My last bolt is gone," he groaned.
"But we have our swords, and you have slain the giant."
"No, Gerard," said Denys gravely, "I have not. And the worst is I have
wounded him. Fool! to shoot at a retreating lion. He had never faced thy
handiwork again, but for my meddling."
"Ha! to your guard! I hear them open the door."
Then Denys, depressed by the one error he had committed in all this
fearful night, felt convinced his last hour had come. He drew his sword,
but like one doomed. But what is this? a red light flickers on the
ceiling. Gerard flew to the window and looked out. There were men with
torches, and breastplates gleaming red. "We are saved! Armed men!" And
he dashed his sword through the window shouting, "Quick! quick! we are
sore pressed."
"Back!" yelled Denys; "they come! strike none but him!"
That very moment the Abbot and two men with naked weapons rushed into
the room. Even as they came, the outer door was hammered fiercely, and
the Abbot's comrades hearing it, and seeing the torchlight, turned and
fled. Not so the terrible Abbot: wild with rage and pain, he spurned his
dead comrade, chair and all, across the room, then, as the men faced him
on each side with kindling eyeballs, he waved his tremendous axe like a
feather right and left, and cleared a space, then lifted it to hew them
both in pieces.
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