upon mankind.

Blow upon blow, with clash of steel, thrust after thrust as the darting
of serpents, till the dead lay in heaps, and the horses' hoofs churned
blood and grass to a green-red foam, till the sword-arm waited high and
then sank slowly, because there was none for the sword to strike, and
the point rested among the close-sewn rings of mail on Buondelmonte's
foot, and the thin streams of blood trickled quietly down the dimmed
blade.

"Sir," said Buondelmonte, courteously, "you are a marvellous fine
swordsman, though you fence not in our manner, with the point. I am
your debtor for the safety of my left side. Are you hurt, sir?"

"Not I!" laughed Gilbert, wiping his broad blade slowly on his horse's
mane for lack of anything better.

Then Buondelmonte looked at him again and smiled.

"You have won yourself a fair crest," he laughed, as he glanced at
Gilbert's cap.

"A crest?" Gilbert put up his hand, and uttered an exclamation as it
struck against a sharp steel point.

A half-spent arrow had pierced the top of his red cloth cap and was
sticking there, like a woman's long hairpin. He thought that if it had
struck two inches lower, with a little more force, he should have
looked as the man in the woods did, whom Alric had killed. He plucked
the shaft from the stiff cloth with some difficulty, and, barely