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It was the custom in these coronations for the king thus to offer his sword, in token of the subordination of his royal power to the law and will of God, and then the sword was afterward to be redeemed with money by the sword-bearer, the officer whose duty it was, on leaving the church, to bear the sword in procession before the king.
The smith pulled the cart, and Ruth pushed, Hans Eitelfritz, with his sword-bearer, walking by her side. From time to time Spanish soldiers met and accosted them; but Hans skilfully satisfied their curiosity and dispelled their suspicions. Pillage and murder had not yet ceased, and Ruth saw, heard, and mistrusted scenes of horror, that congealed her blood.
He would arise amongst those powerful men, more powerful than they. "I shall appear as a torch-bearer, to show them truth; and as a sword-bearer, to show them justice!" What a triumph! And, building up these fantasies in his mind, clear and confused at the same time, he had attacks of delirium, sinking on the first seat he came to; sometimes drowsy, sometimes starting up.
At Yembo, Tayf, Mekka, and Djidda, Ghaleb kept his vizier, who was called El Hakem at Mekka and Tayf. He had, besides, his khasnadar, or treasurer; his selahdar, or sword-bearer; moherdar, or keeper of the seal; and a few other officers, who, however, were far from keeping up so strict an etiquette, or being persons of as much consequence, as those officers are in the Turkish court.
What would be the consequence, thought Nicholas, of anybody presuming to call the Lord Mayor of London ‘Nick!’ He should like to know what the sword-bearer would say to that; or the recorder, or the toast-master, or any other of the great officers of the city. They’d nick him. But these were not the worst of Nicholas Tulrumble’s doings.
While endeavouring to repulse the last fierce charge of the Parthians, he was wounded severely by an arrow, and finding himself unable to extricate his troops, rather than desert them he ordered his sword-bearer to slay him.
"Hasten," he cried to one of his officers, "run, my friend, and strangle my poor Basilissa; let her not fall a prey to these infamous wretches." The door opened, all resistance ceased, the guards hastened to escape by the windows. Kursheed's sword-bearer entered, followed by the executioners. "Let the justice of Allah be accomplished!" said a cadi.
Then he tottered sideways, tumbling to the floor of the porch. The younger man without hesitation drove a needle-pointed creese three times into his ruler's breast. Withdrawing the knife, the sword-bearer then killed himself. "Charge, Lieutenant Prescott!" called Captain Freeman. "Charge!" repeated the lieutenant.
But this is to look forward: these were the days not of Victor Emanuel but of Charles Albert; and it was on Charles Albert that mother and son had now fixed their eyes as on the sword-bearer of Italy. On Fleeming's sixteenth birthday, they were, the mother writes, 'in great anxiety for news from the army. You can have no idea what it is to live in a country where such a struggle is going on.
What would be the consequence, thought Nicholas, of anybody presuming to call the Lord Mayor of London 'Nick! He should like to know what the sword-bearer would say to that; or the recorder, or the toast- master, or any other of the great officers of the city. They'd nick him. But these were not the worst of Nicholas Tulrumble's doings.
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