Once when I was helping Max to buckle on his armor for a bout at practice, he said:--
"Yolanda seems to treat this battle as a jest. She laughs and banters me as if it were to be a justing bout. I wonder if she really has a heart?"
"Max, I am surprised at your dulness," I said. "Do you not see her manner is assumed, though her fear is small because of her great faith in your prowess?"
"I'll try to deserve her faith," answered Max.
When at last the day arrived, Max was in prime condition. At the inn we carefully adjusted the armor and fitted it on him. One of our squires led the charger, carefully trapped, to the lists, which had been built in an open field outside the town, west of the castle.
Max and I, accompanied by Hymbercourt and two other friends, rode down to Castleman's, and Max entered the house for a few minutes. Yolanda had told him that she would not be at the lists, and Max felt that it were better so.
Twonette and her father had gone to the lists when we reached the House under the Wall, but Yolanda and Frau Kate were awaiting us. There was a brief greeting and a hurried parting--tearful on Yolanda's part. Then we rode around to the Postern and entered the courtyard of the castle. Crossing the courtyard, we passed out through the great gate at the keep, and soon stood demanding admission to the lists.
The course was laid off north and south, the sun being in the southwest. The hour of battle was fixed at four o'clock, and the combat was to continue till sundown, if neither champion fell before that time. The pavilion for the duke and the other spectators was built at the west side of the false lists--a strip of ground ten feet wide, extending entirely around the true lists, but separated from it by a barrier or railing three feet high.
It was an hour after we left Castleman's house before Max and I entered the false lists. As I expected, the princess was sitting in the pavilion with her father and Duchess Margaret. A veil partly concealed her features, and when Max rode down the false lists to make his obeisance before the duke and the duchess, he could not know that the white face of Yolanda looked down upon him. I was sorry to see the princess in the pavilion, because I knew that if an untoward fate should befall Max, a demonstration would surely follow in the ducal gallery.