Chapter III.
THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH.
KING ARTHUR AND THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE.
“In twelve great battles overcame
The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reigned.”
HE light burns low on our pageant, and the scene grows dim and confused; yet we know only too well that a desperate struggle is going on. The battle-cries of warriors and the shrieks of the wounded are ever in our ears. The glare of blazing roof-trees lights up for a moment the ghastly scene, and reveals the pitiless work of slaughter. As it flickers out all is gloom and silence; it is the only peace that the stricken land knows.
The scene shifts, but the drama is ever the same. There seems to be no end to the hordes of attackers. They come by sea and they come by land; most terrible of all are they whose serpent-headed ships are now seen faintly on the strand. The tide of war sets in their favour, though they are beaten back from time to time before the despairing onset of the Britons.
Now you see amidst the press the noble form of that gallant British prince who is the very soul of the island defence. Arthur, the peerless knight, steps before us, “every inch a king.” He shines like a star in the gloom. Legend, song, and story have so woven themselves about his name and fame, so many fables have been told about him, so many wondrous deeds and miracles have been ascribed to him, that historians dispute his very existence.