lking, Gwyllem had
ridden up, somewhat the worse for liquor. Branwen had called him sot,
had bidden him go home. "That I will do," said Gwyllem and suddenly
caught up the girl. Alundyne sprang for him, and with clenched fist
Gwyllem struck her twice full in the face, and laughing, rode away
with Branwen.

Richard made no observation. In silence he fetched his horse, and did
not pause to saddle it. Quickly he rode to Gwyllem's house, and broke
in the door. Against the farther wall stood lithe Branwen fighting
silently: her breasts and shoulders were naked, where Gwyllem had torn
away her garments. He wheedled, laughed, swore, and hiccoughed, turn
by turn, but she was silent.

"On guard!" Richard barked. Gwyllem wheeled. His head twisted toward
his left shoulder, and one corner of his mouth convulsively snapped
upward, so that his teeth were bared. There was a knife at Richard's
girdle, which he now unsheathed and flung away. He stepped eagerly
toward the snarling Welshman, and with both hands seized the thick and
hairy throat. What followed was brutal.

For many minutes Branwen stood with averted face, shuddering. She very
dimly heard the sound of Gwyllem's impotent fists as they beat against
the countenance and body of Richard, and heard the thin splitting
vicious noise of torn cloth as Gwyllem clutched at Richard's tunic and
tore it many times. Richard did not utter any articulate word, and
Gwyllem could not. There was entire silence for a heart-beat, and the
thudding fall of something ponderous and limp.

"Come!" Richard said then. Through the hut's twilight he came, as
glorious in her eyes as Michael fresh from that primal battle with old
Satan. Tall Richard came to her, his face all blood, and lifted her in
his arms lest Branwen's skirt be soiled by the demolished thing which
sprawled across their path. She never spoke. She could not speak. In
his arms she rode homeward, passive, and content. The horse trod with
deliberation. In the east the young moon was taking heart as the
darkness thickened, and innumerable stars awoke. Branwen noted these
things incuriously.

Richard was horribly afraid. He it had been, in sober verity it had
been Richard of Bordeaux, that some monstrous force had seized, and
had lifted, and had curtly utilized as its handiest implement. He had
been, and in the moment had known himself to be, the thrown spear as
yet in air, about to kill and quite powerless to refrain from killing.
It wa