teel harness, and
a pink and white torse bound round his helmet. The first struck Felton
on the target with such force as to split it from side to side, but Sir
William's lance crashed through the camail which shielded the Spaniard's
throat, and he fell, screaming hoarsely, to the ground. Carried away by
the heat and madness of fight, the English knight never drew rein, but
charged straight on into the array of the knights of Calatrava. Long
time the silent ranks upon the hill could see a swirl and eddy deep down
in the heart of the Spanish column, with a circle of rearing chargers
and flashing blades. Here and there tossed the white plume of the
English helmet, rising and falling like the foam upon a wave, with the
fierce gleam and sparkle ever circling round it until at last it had
sunk from view, and another brave man had turned from war to peace.

Sir Nigel, meanwhile, had found a foeman worthy of his steel for his
opponent was none other than Sebastian Gomez, the picked lance of
the monkish Knights of Santiago, who had won fame in a hundred bloody
combats with the Moors of Andalusia. So fierce was their meeting that
their spears shivered up to the very grasp, and the horses reared
backwards until it seemed that they must crash down upon their riders.
Yet with consummate horsemanship they both swung round in a long curvet,
and then plucking out their swords they lashed at each other like two
lusty smiths hammering upon an anvil. The chargers spun round each
other, biting and striking, while the two blades wheeled and whizzed and
circled in gleams of dazzling light. Cut, parry, and thrust followed
so swiftly upon each other that the eye could not follow them, until at
last coming thigh to thigh, they cast their arms around each other
and rolled off their saddles to the ground. The heavier Spaniard threw
himself upon his enemy, and pinning him down beneath him raised his
sword to slay him, while a shout of triumph rose from the ranks of his
countrymen. But the fatal blow never fell, for even as his arm quivered
before descending, the Spaniard gave a shudder, and stiffening himself
rolled heavily over upon his side, with the blood gushing from his
armpit and from the slit of his vizor. Sir Nigel sprang to his feet with
his bloody dagger in his left hand and gazed down upon his adversary,
but that fatal and sudden stab in the vital spot, which the Spaniard had
exposed by raising his arm, had proved instantly mortal. The