Dimly thus looking at one another stood the combatants, bleeding a while in peace.  At length Tancred, who wished to know his antagonist, said, “It hath been no good fortune of ours to be compelled thus to fight where nobody can behold us; but we have at least become acquainted with the good swords of one another.  Let me request, therefore (if to request any thing at such a time be not unbecoming), that I may be no stranger to thy name.  Permit me to learn, whatever be the result, who it is that shall honour my death or my victory.”

“I am not accustomed,” answered the fierce maiden, “to disclose who I am; nor shall I disclose it now.  Suffice to hear, that thou seest before thee one of the burners of the tower.”

Tancred was exasperated at this discovery.  “In an evil moment,” cried he, “hast thou said it.  Thy silence and thy speech alike disgust me.”  Into the combat again they dash, feeble as they were.  Ferocious indeed is the strife in which skill is not thought of, and strength itself is dead; in which valour rages instead of contends, and feebleness becomes hate and fury.  Oh, the gates of blood that were set open in wounds upon wounds!  If life itself did not come pouring forth, it was only because scorn withheld it.

As in the AEgean Sea, when the south and north winds have lost the violence of their strength, the billows do not subside nevertheless, but retain the noise and magnitude of their first motion; so the continued impulse of the combatants carried them still against one another, hurling them into mutual injury, though they had scarcely life in their bodies.[5]

And now the fatal hour has come when Clorinda must die.  The sword of Tancred is in her bosom to the very hilt.  The stomacher under the cuirass which enclosed it is filled with a hot flood.

Her legs give way beneath her.  She falls—­she feels that she is departing.  The conqueror, with a still threatening countenance, prepares to follow up his victory, and treads on her as she lies.

But a new spirit had come upon her—­the spirit which called the beloved of Heaven to itself; and, speaking in a sorrowing voice, she thus uttered her last words: 

“My friend, thou hast conquered—­I forgive thee.  Forgive thou me, not for my body’s sake, which fears nothing, but for the sake, alas, of my soul.  Baptise me, I beseech thee.”

There was something in the voice, as the dying person spake these words, that went, he knew not why, to the heart of Tancred.  The tears forced themselves into his eyes.  Not far off there was a little stream, and the conqueror went to it and filled his helmet; and returning, prepared for the pious office by unlacing his adversary’s helmet.  His hands trembled when he first beheld the forehead, though he did not yet know it; but when the vizor was all down, and the face disclosed, he remained without speech and motion.

Oh, the sight! oh, the recognition!