"
"Be of good comfort, sir," said Halbert, half distracted with his agony
of pity and remorse. "I trust you shall yet do well--Oh for a leech!"
"Were there twenty physicians, O most generous Audacity, and that were
a grave spectacle--I might not survive, my life is ebbing
fast.--Commend me to the rustical nymph whom I called my Discretion--O
Claridiana!--true empress of this bleeding heart--which now bleedeth
in sad earnest!--Place me on the ground at my length, most rustical
victor, born to quench the pride of the burning light of the most
felicitous court of Feliciana--O saints and angels---knights and
ladies--masques and theatres--quaint devices--chain-work and
broidery--love, honour, and beauty!----"
While muttering these last words, which slid from him, as it were
unawares, while doubtless he was calling to mind the glories of the
English court, the gallant Sir Piercie Shafton stretched out his
limbs--groaned deeply, shut his eyes, and became motionless.
The victor tore his hair for very sorrow, as he looked on the pale
countenance of his victim. Life, he thought, had not utterly fled, but
without better aid than his own, he saw not how it could be preserved.
"Why," he exclaimed in vain penitence, "why did I provoke him to an
issue so fatal! Would to God I had submitted to the worst insult man
could receive from man, rather than be the bloody instrument of this
bloody deed--and doubly cursed be this evil-boding spot, which,
haunted as I knew it to be by a witch or a devil, I yet chose for the
place of combat! In any other place, save this, there had been help to
be gotten by speed of foot, or by uplifting of voice--but here there
is no one to be found by search, no one to hear my shouts, save the
evil spirit who has counselled this mischief.
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