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.
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