wiped blood from the face with the skirt of her tunic; she forced
the stiffened jaws together, so that the horror took again the likeness
to a human face; while her breath whistled in sobbing gasps and her
flesh crept and crawled with horror. She bent and peered into the poor
face that no longer seemed to scream at her, holding the jaws shut with
tense and shaking hands. And then she sat back upon her heels with a
strangled sob of relief and nerves far overwrought, wiping her hands
furiously upon her skirt and crying:

"It is not thou! Dear Christ in heaven! it is not thou! How thou wilt
laugh when I tell thee, beloved--when I tell thee that a dead man
screamed at me and I thought him thee! How thou wilt laugh--and I shall
laugh with thee!"

Sobbing, she began to laugh, a laughter strange and cracked like the
laugh of a very old woman, that mounted high and higher, welling from
her throat as blood wells from a wound; and rocked herself to and fro
and stared into the face of the dead stranger with wide eyes of
unreason....

She took her torch and fled on, and the face that she had left behind
seemed to scream its mockery with open jaws through the darkness after
her.

X

Nicanor was half way up the beach when the stationarius went down and
his men fell upon the Saxons. Instantly, nothing loath, he found himself
in the midst of the fighting. He was unarmed, save for his knife; so
that his first thought was to get within the length of the long swords
of those attacking him, since at close range, these, built for
thrusting, were as good as useless. This was not easy to do, for the
Saxons, despite their bulk, were light upon their feet, and wary to keep
their opponents at sufficient distance. But twice he did it, each time
forcing his adversary to leave his sword-play and take to his dagger,
the terrible seaxa which had won for the Saxons their name.

He went into battle joyously, cool-eyed, alert, heart and soul in the
work ahead; yet ever with that other self within him, which stood apart
as a spectator in the arena, and watched through the smoke and crimson
light of battle the faces of those who fought,--the fierce delight of
one, the black hate of another, red wounds, and the swift black swoop of
Death. His heart sang its high song of triumph which his lips would fain
have echoed, of thanksgiving in the clean strength of his manhood, in
the power of his arm, which could uphold his own before all men. He
stooped