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But he paid dearly for his hardiness, for a half-hour afterwards he lay on the earth with a spear wound in his shoulder, while Tristram rode unscathed on his way. On the day following Tristram met with pursuivants, who were spreading far and wide the news of a great tournament that was to be held between King Carados and the king of North Wales, at the Castle of Maidens.
His intention was to attend the tournament in disguise; and having communicated his project to Guenever, he mounted his horse, set off without any attendant, and, counterfeiting the feebleness of age, took the most unfrequented road to Winchester, and passed unnoticed as an old knight who was going to be a spectator of the sports.
Yet it was treason at court to doubt the certainty of war. The King ordered new suits of armour, bought splendid chargers, and gave himself all the airs of a champion rushing to a tournament as gaily as in the earliest days of his king-errantry.
Only his eyes shone out like goggles, through two holes pierced in the wall of haberdashery, and his little front hoofs peeped in and out like rats. Yet did this compound, gorgeous and irrational, represent power; absolute power: it came straight from a tournament at the Duke's court, which being on a progress, lay last night at a neighbouring town to execute the behests of royalty.
The count with chivalrous hospitality received them, and led them into the banqueting-hall. His astonishment was great, when he recognised the bold Briton, the victor at the tournament in Cologne, as leader of this brilliant retinue, he who had broken his secret pledge to his beloved sister. A dark glance took the place of the friendly expression on his face.
The days preceding the tournament were days of misery for Larry. The decision in the contest would of course be on points and he knew that he could outpoint without much difficulty his antagonist who was clumsy and slow. For the decision Larry cared nothing at all. At the most he had little to lose for it would be but small disgrace to be beaten by a boy so much bigger.
He spends the whole day in settling whether Homer expressed himself correctly or not in such and such a line of the Iliad, whether Martial was indecent or not in such and such an epigram, whether such and such lines of Virgil are to be understood in this way or in that; in short, all his talk is of the works of these poets, and those of Horace, Perseus, Juvenal, and Tibullus; for of the moderns in our own language he makes no great account; but with all his seeming indifference to Spanish poetry, just now his thoughts are absorbed in making a gloss on four lines that have been sent him from Salamanca, which I suspect are for some poetical tournament."
Then he laid his hand on the wonderful sword, and easily drew it out of the stone, and placed it in his sheath. "God has sent you the sword, now He will send you a shield as well," said King Arthur. Then the King proclaimed that the next day there would be a tournament in the meadows of Camelot. For before his knights went out to new adventures, he would see Sir Galahad proved.
All through the livelong day on Saturdays, and in the afternoons during weekdays, boys in strange-looking running costumes of various designs could be seen diligently practicing at all manner of stunts, from sprinting, leaping hurdles, engaging in the high jump, with the aid of poles; throwing the hammer; and, in fact, every conceivable exercise that would be apt to come under the head of a genuine athletic tournament.
The tilting lance was often made hollow, and was from 12 to 15 feet long; but the lance used with the object of unhorsing instead of splintering was much stronger, heavier, and thicker in the stem, and instead of a pointed head had a "coronal," which was blunt. The first part of the tournament having come to an end, then followed the battle of the swords.
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