“May it please your Highness to give me leave to prove my quality with the lance?”
The Prince gravely assented to the proposal and a soldier was dispatched to fetch the young captain’s horse and tilting lance. In the few minutes that elapsed before his return, our hero’s thoughts strayed to the period of his hermitage in the Lincolnshire forest and he congratulated himself on the time then spent in the practice of a weapon that was fast falling into disuse.
Hard by the commander’s tent stood a convenient tree. From one of its branches a soldier was instructed to suspend an iron ring, no bigger than a dollar piece, at the height of a mounted man’s head. When this had been done, John, who was already mounted, took his lance from the attendant soldier and placing it in rest, bore down upon the mark at full tilt. When he wheeled round and saluted Prince Moyses, the ring was upon the point of his lance.
“Bravissimo!” cried the Prince with a smile of satisfaction. “I had not thought to see that feat performed in this day,” he added as he turned on his heel and entered the tent.
[X.]
THE THREE TURKS
Captain Smith meets the Turkish champion in a duel with lances—The gorgeous pasha makes a brave appearance but loses his life at the first encounter—Smith presents Prince Moyses with a grizzly trophy—The slain Turk’s bosom friend challenges Smith—The combatants’ lances are shattered to splinters—They continue the fight with pistols and the Englishman is hit—The gallant war-horse saves the issue—Grualgo bites the dust—Smith sends a challenge into Regall—Meets Boni Mulgro and for the third time is victor—He is honored with a pageant—Receives rich presents, promotion and a patent of Nobility.
A truce having been declared for the day of the combat, the opposing armies approached each other without restraint but their soldiery did not mingle. The Christians were drawn up, a short distance from the city, in battle array with a grand display of banners, trophies and the various insignia of heraldry. The Moslems assembled in an irregular mass beneath the gray walls of the beleaguered town, whilst their women, attended by slaves, occupied points of vantage along the ramparts.