Then the King asked Sancie loudly: "Are you content to give your hand to the winner of this contest?" and the herald shouted her answer so that all heard it: "The high and puissant Lady, Sancie, willingly grants her hand as prize to the victor."
But even as he cried, all were aware that the end was not yet, for the roi d'armes pricked to the King's balcony and again the herald blew his trumpet and announced that another challenger, delayed from appearing at the first, contested this decision. Having been bidden enter, a burly knight mounted upon a giant percheron rode into the lists, all cased in sable armour and carrying a shield which displayed Atlas supporting the globe.
Then Charles of Anjou, who fought not, but sat by the side of his betrothed, scoffed, "Ho, mountain of flesh, globe of blubber, and colossus of conceit, here is a whale indeed among fishes, a world-bearing monster, who fancieth that all the affairs of this earth rest upon his shoulders. 'Tis a cup which our gallant knight will soon spill for him. Hold fast, fair ladies, for the globe is about to topple from its foundations!"
But, to the astonishment of the speaker and of all present, the knight of Atlas riding full tilt against him of the Spilling Cup, drove him backward, as it seemed, by his sheer weight, so that the barrier crashed behind his horse's haunches, and the rider, letting fall his lance acknowledged himself vanquished.
Only Richard himself knew what that submission cost him. For while their spears were crossed, the head of Aldobrandino's tapping his opponent's shield, it was with a weak and wavering touch; while Richard's had found a joint in the armour of the knight of Atlas, and had he not generously and dexterously withdrawn his lance, Aldobrandino by the very force of his onset, would have transpierced himself upon it.
For the moment he had his adversary in his power, and even as he withheld the spear he cried to Aldobrandino, "What hinders me from rolling you in the dust and myself winning that prize inestimable?"
Aldobrandino, knowing well in what emergency he stood, replied calmly, "But one thing hinders—your word as a belted knight," and at that answer Richard's head drooped and he sank to earth as one sore wounded.
But the spectators knew naught of this byplay. Hearing not the words, they put their own construction on the pantomime. Judge then what was their surprise, what the vexation of the two Queens and the despair of the fair Sancie, when the knight of Atlas, raising his visor, displayed the features of Aldobrandino.
King Louis announced him victor, though it was noted that he had never done anything with so ill a grace, and indeed the good King's conscience smote him so sorely, knowing himself a partner in the trick, that he could never have made the ruling but that he hoped it would be reversed in the poetical contest yet to come.
III