They were away, running hand in hand, and even their chance of death had an exultant1 cry in its throat.
“Shoot—shoot! No mercy!”
Fulk let go of Isoult’s hand, and swung behind her so as to cover her from the arrows of Merlin’s men, but she hung back and would not suffer him to serve her as shield.
“No, no; I take the same chance as you, my friend. There are oak woods down yonder—they will be our salvation3.”
“I will show them a woodland trick or two.”
Arrows went past them, first one, and then three flying together and whistling like wind through the keyhole. A cross-bow bolt struck the turf close to Isoult’s heels, and they heard the harsher twang of the arblast cord.
“That was Merlin’s shot. He has poached many a bird.”
“Let them shoot. It means they will lose in the running.”
They heard Merlin’s voice, furious and strident.
The stiffness went out of Fulk’s legs like wax melting before a fire. He felt monstrously5 strong, ready to run on air, with never a thought of tiring. Isoult, being a woman of sense, had twitched7 her skirts up over her girdle, and she ran beside him like a deer.
“My desire, you have good wings.”
She laughed, feeling the mounting pride of his manhood in her.
“An I were naked I would dare any man to catch me—save you, perhaps!”
He glanced back with an exultant lift of the chin.
“They shoot like townsmen, and it is all down hill. Skim, swallow, skim!”
“Let me but cut a quarterstaff, and I’ll thank any five of them to come within striking distance. Jump, jump—a ditch!”
They leapt it together, and an arrow struck a thorn bush near them on the farther bank.
“The luck is with us!”
“I could sing, but breath is precious! Ah, Master Fierceheart, my pride flies with yours!”
“Isoult, when did it begin with you?”
“Ah—when! And with you?”
“God knows! Someone lit a torch in me—Hullo!”
Fulk had heard the whir of an arrow shot at a venture, and the sound of its striking home. He felt Isoult’s fingers contract on his, and heard her utter a sharp cry.
“Isoult, ar’t hurt?”
“It’s over with me, Fulk; put your arm under my shoulders.”
“Dear heart, where has it struck you?”
“Here, where God thieved from Adam.”
“Fulk, I can go no farther.”
“I’ll carry you.”
“No, no; lay me down, dear madman, and run for it. Our luck is out. I have got my quittance.”
He felt the arrow in her side, and the warmth of her blood upon his arm, and a wondering wrath12 came over him. Her body seemed to melt, to slip away, to surrender all the thrilling tenseness of its muscles.
“Lay me down, my desire—and go.”
“A curse on the pain.”
He knelt by her, but she tried to thrust him away.
“It is my death wound. Up, dear fool; go—I charge you.”
“Not I. Give me your knife.”
She threw out her arms and caught him about the neck.
“Go. You cannot save me. Go. I ask it, with the blood of my death wound on me. Oh, strong heart—once—the last!”
She drew him down and kissed him fiercely with lips that clung, and then thrust him off.
“Take the knife; I shall never need it!”
“Isoult.”
“Now—go!”
“By God—I cannot!”
“My own mad fool, what can you do now? Come back with the sword to-morrow—and take your vengeance14.”
He sprang up, her knife in his hand, as a man came out of the darkness. Fulk struck him so fiercely that he went down without a cry. Another rushed at him, and had the knife in his throat; but the rest of the pack were closing in.
Fulk heard Isoult call to him.
“The life is out of me, my desire. Run, cheat Merlin, and I’ll die happy.”
He threw himself down beside her, kissed her mouth, and sprang away from under the feet of Merlin’s men. A flurry of arrows went after him in the darkness, but they flew wild and wide, and before they could shoot again Fulk had reached the woods.
How long or whither he ran Fulk of the Forest never knew. Isoult’s last cry had flung him forward into blind, physical activity that was fanatical and dazed. He blundered through the underwood and between the trunks of trees, hardly feeling the hazel rods stinging his face. Once he crashed into an oak bole, and went on with his head singing. A voice kept crying in him, “Run, run!” and his limbs and his senses were mere15 brute16 beasts that served.
Fulk ran for some three miles before the self suddenly awoke in him like a raw wound uncovered to the air. He faltered in his stride, dropped to a walk, and then stood still, staring at the ground in front of him, as though he had been running in his sleep.
“Isoult!”
He thrust out his hands with a fierce cry, and then covered his face with his forearms. Vision had come to him so vividly17 and with such bitterness that he rocked as he stood and breathed like a man in pain.
Dead! He could not believe it. Her lips were still alive to his, and her hands still thrilled him. Had it all happened, that passionate18 conspiring19 of theirs, that rushing together through the darkness, that mad, exultant love flight? He heard again her cry when the arrow struck her, her fierce pleading with him to leave her, and felt her arms holding him and her lips pressing themselves to his. Mother of God, those lips of hers! They had left him on fire, those lips of hers, and she herself was dead.
A savage20 compassion21 swept over him, an impotent and furious love rage that struggled against a sense of utter and incredible emptiness.
“Isoult!”
He bit the flesh of his wrist, and cursed himself. She was dead by now for his sake, this incomparable, strange creature, with all her fierce, wayward pride. Why had he run away and left her to Merlin? She was his, though dead; the hands, the lips, the eyes were his. He should have fought it to a finish with that scum of serfdom, and not left her alone in death. It was monstrous6, damnable, fit only for the spittle of a superhuman scorn.
What had he lost? And yesterday his eyes were blind! He saw it all now in a flare22 of tenderness, her desire to save him, and the stiffneckedness of his own pride. What was he that she should have suffered to save him, that she should have stooped to a lie against her honour, and lost her life at the hands of Merlin and these boors23?
Merlin!
His passion turned like a wounded boar, seeing something to strike at, something to slay24. By the Cross, he would make amends25, come by arms and horse, and join himself to those who were ready to trample26 this stubble of the fields into the mud. And this knife of Isoult’s that he had at his girdle should be kept for Merlin—the grey friar.
点击收听单词发音
1 exultant | |
adj.欢腾的,狂欢的,大喜的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 snarled | |
v.(指狗)吠,嗥叫, (人)咆哮( snarl的过去式和过去分词 );咆哮着说,厉声地说 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 salvation | |
n.(尤指基督)救世,超度,拯救,解困 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 jade | |
n.玉石;碧玉;翡翠 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 monstrously | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 monstrous | |
adj.巨大的;恐怖的;可耻的,丢脸的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 twitched | |
vt.& vi.(使)抽动,(使)颤动(twitch的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 maze | |
n.迷宫,八阵图,混乱,迷惑 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 swerved | |
v.(使)改变方向,改变目的( swerve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 faltered | |
(嗓音)颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 ); 支吾其词; 蹒跚; 摇晃 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 clenched | |
v.紧握,抓紧,咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 wrath | |
n.愤怒,愤慨,暴怒 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 barb | |
n.(鱼钩等的)倒钩,倒刺 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 vengeance | |
n.报复,报仇,复仇 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 brute | |
n.野兽,兽性 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 vividly | |
adv.清楚地,鲜明地,生动地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 passionate | |
adj.热情的,热烈的,激昂的,易动情的,易怒的,性情暴躁的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 conspiring | |
密谋( conspire的现在分词 ); 搞阴谋; (事件等)巧合; 共同导致 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20 savage | |
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21 compassion | |
n.同情,怜悯 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22 flare | |
v.闪耀,闪烁;n.潮红;突发 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23 boors | |
n.农民( boor的名词复数 );乡下佬;没礼貌的人;粗野的人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24 slay | |
v.杀死,宰杀,杀戮 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25 amends | |
n. 赔偿 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26 trample | |
vt.踩,践踏;无视,伤害,侵犯 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
欢迎访问英文小说网 |