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Clamados maketh arm him and mounteth on his horse, and he seemeth right hardy of his arms and valorous. He cometh right in the midst of the tent, where the ground was fair and level, and found Meilot of Logres all armed upon his horse, and a right comely knight was he and a deliver. And the ladies and damsels were round about the tilting-ground.

"I thought you said so," he answered carelessly, adding, to change the subject: "Look, our fray will not lack for spectators," and he pointed to the thousands gathered upon the great tilting-ground. "No, no, all Venice will be there, for these people love a show, especially if there be death in it."

Moreover, the Governor used to go down with him to the tilting-ground and assemble horsemen and teach the lad the fashion of fight and fray, and the place to plant lance-thrust and sabre-stroke; so that by the time he was fourteen years old, he became a valiant wight and accomplished knight and gained the rank of Emir.

'Avoid the dish of sweet rice, said Khalid, 'and look thou eat not thereof; for if thou do, thou wilt be hanged. Then they sat down to meat; and as they were eating, Zumurrud chanced to look at the gate of the tilting-ground and saw a man come running in. So she considered him and knew him for Jewan the Kurd. Now the manner of his coming was on this wise.

And the horn was sounded, and men came in from the tilting-ground and the play-field, and washed, and the king and all his household sat down to dinner. On the morrow, before dawn, Sir Owen rose privily, and put on his armour and took his horse, and rode out of the town, and for many days rode over mountains, until he saw the sea like a sheet of burnished lead lying on his left hand.

Amidst the sorrowing people, with women crying and men muttering and looking darkly at the knights about her, the queen was led to the tilting-ground beyond the northern wall, and in the midst thereof was a stake. To this she was fastened with a rope, and faggots of wood were piled about her feet up to her knees.

We should like to record the romantic stories that have woven themselves around each crumbling keep and bailey-court, to see them in the days of their glory when warders kept the gate and watching archers guarded the wall, and the lord and lady and their knights and esquires dined in the great hall, and knights practised feats of arms in the tilting-ground, and the banner of the lord waved over the battlements, and everything was ready for war or sport, hunting or hawking.

He entered it on the first day of the month and finding the streets deserted and the shops shut, enquired of the women at the windows, who told him that the King made a banquet on the first of each month for the people, all of whom were bound to attend it, nor might any abide in his house or shop that day; and they directed him to the tilting-ground.

All the more time for conversation, the give and take of wits, the pleasures of the intellectual tilting-ground; the whole watered by good wine, seasoned with the best of cooking, and lapped in the general ease of a house where nobody ever thought of such a vulgar thing as money except to spend it. Doris had in general a severe mind as to the rich and aristocratic classes.

He found the town deserted and enquiring of some women whom he saw looking from the windows, learnt that it was the Sultan's custom to make a banquet for all the people on the first of each month and was directed to the tilting-ground, where the feast was spread.