nd, body, every power of life, was
centered in one intense, burning effort. He neither felt, thought, nor
reasoned, but clutching, with the blindness of instinct, the heavy,
spiked, iron-headed mace that hung at the Earl's saddle-bow, he gave it
one tremendous wrench that snapped the plaited leathern thongs that held
it as though they were skeins of thread. Then, grinding his teeth as
with a spasm, he struck as he had never struck before--once, twice,
thrice full upon the front of the helmet. Crash! crash! And then, even
as the Earl toppled sidelong, crash! And the iron plates split and
crackled under the third blow. Myles had one flashing glimpse of an
awful face, and then the saddle was empty.

Then, as he held tight to the horse, panting, dizzy, sick to death, he
felt the hot blood gushing from his side, filling his body armor, and
staining the ground upon which he stood. Still he held tightly to the
saddle-bow of the fallen man's horse until, through his glimmering
sight, he saw the Marshal, the Lieutenant, and the attendants gather
around him. He heard the Marshal ask him, in a voice that sounded faint
and distant, if he was dangerously wounded. He did not answer, and one
of the attendants, leaping from his horse, opened the umbril of his
helmet, disclosing the dull, hollow eyes, the ashy, colorless lips, and
the waxy forehead, upon which stood great beads of sweat.

"Water! water!" he cried, hoarsely; "give me to drink!" Then, quitting
his hold upon the horse, he started blindly across the lists towards the
gate of the barrier. A shadow that chilled his heart seemed to fall upon
him. "It is death," he muttered; then he stopped, then swayed for an
instant, and then toppled headlong, crashing as he fell.

CONCLUSION

But Myles was not dead. Those who had seen his face when the umbril of
the helmet was raised, and then saw him fall as he tottered across the
lists, had at first thought so. But his faintness was more from loss
of blood and the sudden unstringing of nerve and sense from the intense
furious strain of the last few moments of battle than from the vital
nature of the wound. Indeed, after Myles had been carried out of the
lists and laid upon the ground in the shade between the barriers,
Master Thomas, the Prince's barber-surgeon, having examined the wounds,
declared that he might be even carried on a covered litter to Scotland
Yard without serious danger. The Prince was extremely desirous of having
h