re the company gathered to see the sport.

With the gray gabardine drawn but loosely over his silken suit, so
that he might, if need be, easily slip from it, Otto von Arkell boldly
entered the inclosure.

"Soho, Juno! up, Hercules; hollo, up, Ajax!" cried Count William,
from the balcony. "Here cometh a right royal playfellow--up, up, my
beauties!" and the great brutes, roused by the voice of their master,
pulled themselves up, shook themselves awake, and stared at the
intruder.

Boldly and without hesitation, while all the watchers had eyes but for
him alone, the young Lord of Arkell walked straight up to Hercules,
the largest of the three, and laid his hand caressingly upon the shaggy
mane. Close to his side pressed Juno, the lioness, and, so says the
record of the old Dutch chronicler, von Hildegaersberch, "the lions did
him no harm; he played with them as if they had been dogs."

But Ajax, fiercest of the three, took no notice of the lad. Straight
across his comrades he looked to where, scarce a rod behind the daring
lad, came another figure, a light and graceful form in clinging robes of
blue and undergown of cloth of gold--the Princess Jacqueline herself!

The watchers in the gallery followed the lion's stare, and saw, with
horror, the advancing figure of this fair young girl. A cry of terror
broke from every lip. The Dauphin John turned pale with fright, and
Count William of Holland, calling out, "Down, Ajax! back, girl, back!"
sprang to his feet as if he would have vaulted over the gallery rail.

But before he could act, Ajax himself had acted. With a bound he
cleared the intervening space and crouched at the feet of the fair young
Princess Jacqueline!

The lions must have been in remarkably good humor on that day, for, as
the records tell us, they did no harm to their visitors. Ajax slowly
rose and looked up into the girl's calm face. Then the voice of
Jacqueline rang out fresh and clear as, standing with her hand buried in
the lion's tawny mane, she raised her face to the startled galleries.

"You who could dare and yet dared not to do!" she cried, "it shall not
be said that in all Count William's court none save the rebel Lord of
Arkell dared to face Count William's lions!"

The Lord of Arkell sprang to his comrade's side. With a hurried word of
praise he flung the gabardine about her, grasped her arm, and bade her
keep her eyes firmly fixed upon the lions; then, step by step, those two
foolhardy you