"I shall never see Beatrice again," he whispered. "I pray you,
Nigel, that when there is a truce you will journey as far as my
father's chateau and tell him how his son died. Young Gaston will
rejoice, for to him come the land and the coat, the war-cry and
the profit. See them, Nigel, and tell them that I was as forward
as the others."
"Indeed Raoul, no man could have carried himself with more honor
or won more worship than you have done this day. I will do your
behest when the time comes."
"Surely you are happy, Nigel," the dying Squire murmured, "for
this day has given you one more deed which you may lay at the feet
of your lady-love."
"It might have been so had we carried the gate," Nigel answered
sadly; "but by Saint Paul! I cannot count it a deed where I have
come back with my purpose unfulfilled. But this is no time,
Raoul, to talk of my small affairs. If we take the castle and I
bear a good part in it, then perchance all this may indeed avail."
The Frenchman sat up with that strange energy which comes often as
the harbinger of death. "You will win your Lady Mary, Nigel, and
your great deeds will be not three but a score, so that in all
Christendom there shall be no man of blood and coat-armor who has
not heard your name and your fame. This I tell you--I, Raoul de
la Roche Pierre de Bras, dying upon the field of honor.
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