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A sharp exclamation from the girl brought him out of his last fit of abstraction. They were quite near to the tents. "We are late," she cried nervously. "I didn't think of the time. The band is playing the waltz that's the second piece before the tournament. We must hurry. Oh, I do hope father has not missed us!" There was abject terror in her voice.
"Oh!" said Heimbert, blushing from another cause than before, "oh, Dona Clara, that affair at Pavia was nothing but a merry and victorious tournament, and even if occasionally since then I have been engaged in a tougher contest, how have I ever merited as a reward the overwhelming bliss I am now enjoying!
Gallant men in mail ride over the drawbridge, and kiss their gauntleted fingers to fair ladies, who wave their lily hands in return. I see fight and fray and tournament. I hear roaring heralds bawling the charms of delicate women, and shamelessly proclaiming their lovers. Stay. I see a Jewess about to leap from a battlement. I see knightly deeds, violence, rapine, and a good deal of blood.
But for long years Launcelot was the glory of knighthood, and he vied with King Arthur himself in deeds of prowess and of chivalrous courtesy in the tournament and on adventure. Strait: narrow pass. He slew Sir Turquine, who watched to destroy knights, and he clove the head of another false traitor who attended to destroy and distress ladies, damsels, and gentlewomen.
It is probable that some overt action would have been undertaken very shortly when suddenly, on August 19, Geoffrey died, having been mortally hurt in a tournament, or from an attack of fever, or perhaps from both causes. He was buried in Paris, Philip showing great grief and being, it is said, with difficulty restrained from throwing himself into the grave.
"Well," said Sir Launcelot, "provided I may serve you in a way fitting my knightly honor, I shall be glad to do so under any condition. Now I pray you tell me what it is you would have of me." Now if you will enter upon my father's side upon the day of the tournament, I doubt not that he shall win that tournament; for all men say that you are the greatest knight in the world at this time.
He felt his pockets for his knife, but could not find it, and then recollected suddenly that he should have a new one with him, the third prize in a whist tournament in which he had taken part that evening. He found it wrapped in paper in his overcoat pocket, with it cut the thongs and set the little creature free.
He was not present at the wedding, being unavoidably detained by a medal tournament; but, if you turn up the files and look at the list of presents, which were both numerous and costly, you will see somewhere in the middle of the column, the words: STURGIS, J. MORTIMER. Two dozen Silver King Golf-balls and one patent Sturgis Aluminium Self-Adjusting, Self-Compensating Putting-Cleek.
He and his young King thought the respectable way of fighting was for one side to wait civilly for the other, interchange polite defiances on either side, take no advantage of ground, but ride fairly at each other with pennons flying and trumpets sounding, like a tournament; and they did not at all approve of enemies of whom they saw no trace but a little distant smoke in the horizon, and black embers of villages wherever they marched.
No doubt the count would say that he had discharged his page after the tournament, and that the latter was only carrying out his private feud with me. We should not be able to disprove the story, and should gain no satisfaction by the matter."
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