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Updated: May 26, 2025
Before the great audience hall let the bare garden-court again glow with a million blooms; there let the peacocks sun themselves, their living jewels putting to shame the gems that burn back from aigrette and from sword-hilt; see and hear the cool waters sparkling once again from their long-dried founts, flashing in the white sunlight, and flowing over ducts cunningly inlaid with zigzag bands to imitate the ripple of the mountain stream.
As the tall man suddenly got up from the ground, and came running at the carriage, Monsieur the Marquis clapped his hand for an instant on his sword-hilt. "Killed!" shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him. "Dead!" The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis.
Thereat some who knew what was toward laughed; but Gold-mane, who had been away from Burgstead some days past, marvelled and knit his brows, and let his right hand fall on his sword-hilt. For this folk, who were of merry ways, were wont to deal diversely with the Yule- tide customs in the manner of shows; and he knew not that this was one of them.
They pursue him, and he is obliged, like Gude Wallace in the Scottish ballad, to disguise himself in a bondmaid's dress: "Piercing are the eyes of Hagal's bondmaid; it is no peasant's kin who stands at the mill: the stones are split, the bin springs in two. It is a hard fate for a warrior to grind the barley; the sword-hilt is better fitted for those hands than the mill-handle."
And now and then an opening in the smoke showed the Spanish captain, in his suit of black steel armor, standing cool and proud, guiding and pointing, careless of the iron hail, but too lofty a gentleman to soil his glove with aught but a knightly sword-hilt: while Amyas and Will, after the fashion of the English gentlemen, had stripped themselves nearly as bare as their own sailors, and were cheering, thrusting, hewing, and hauling, here, there, and everywhere, like any common mariner, and filling them with a spirit of self-respect, fellow-feeling, and personal daring, which the discipline of the Spaniards, more perfect mechanically, but cold and tyrannous, and crushing spiritually, never could bestow.
"Stay you two in the background," he said to Ben Greenway and Dickory; "you are both landsmen, and you don't count in a ceremony such as this is going to be. Station your men as I told you, Bittern, and man the yards when it is time." Captain Bonnet, in his brave uniform and wearing a cocked hat with a feather, his hand upon his sword-hilt, stood up tall and stately.
Also there were with the minister ten armed slaves who, seeing their master entreated after this fashion, laid hand on sword-hilt and would have bared blades and fallen on Nur al-Din to cut him down; but the merchants and bystanders said to them, "This is a Wazir and that is the son of a Wazir; haply they will make friends some time or other, in which case you will forfeit the favour of both.
The dusty traveller came forward quickly, knelt at the Bishop's feet, and placed the missive in his hands. As the Bishop lifted the Pope's letter and, stooping his head, kissed the papal seal, the Knight kneeled on one knee, his hand upon his sword-hilt, his eyes bent on the ground. So for a moment there was silence.
Bahassoen, his head proudly thrown back, his ornaments, embroideries, and sword-hilt flashing in the light, circled steadily round the fire like a planet round the sun. A cool whiff of damp air came from the darkness of the riverside; it made Abdulla and Babalatchi shiver, and woke them up from their abstraction. "Open the gate and go first," said Abdulla; "there is no danger?"
Nehal Singh stood where the bowing servant left him, at the side of the poor dead woman, his hands crossed upon his sword-hilt, his eyes fixed on the parted curtains. There he waited, motionless, passive, as a man waits who knows that he has become the tool of Destiny. A moment later, Beatrice stood before him. She was not alone, but in that first moment he saw nothing but her face.
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