"Felony!" cried the Sire of Nointel with indignation. "It is forbidden to strike a horse!"
"Well done, my brave woolen cap!" cried the populace on the outside, palpitating with suspense and clapping their hands, despite the strictness and severity of the royal ordinances which commanded profound silence to the spectators at a tourney.
"Fall to, Mazurec!" simultaneously cried Jocelyn and Adam the Devil. "Courage! Kill the nobleman! Kill him! Death to the thief!"
Mazurec rose, and seeing the knight out of poise and holding to the bow of his saddle, dropped his stick, picked up a fistful of sand, leaped upon the horse behind Gerard of Chaumontel, while the latter was seeking to regain his equilibrium, lost no time in clutching the knight around the neck with one hand, turned him half over backward, and with the other rubbed his eyes with the sand he had just picked up. Almost half-blinded, the noble robber dropped his lance and reins and sought to carry his hands to his eyes. Mazurec seeing the movement, put his arms around the knight, and, after a short struggle, succeeded in making him wholly lose his balance and tumble down to the ground, where both fell rolling on the arena, while the crowd of serfs, now considering the serf the victor over the knight, clapped their hands, stamped on the ground with joy and cried: "Victory for the woolen cap!"
Gerard of Chaumontel, however, although blinded by the sand and dazed by the fall, gathered fresh strength from the rage that took possession of him at finding himself unhorsed by a peasant, and with little difficulty regained the upper hand over his unskilled adversary. In the unequal struggle against the man clad in iron, the tight clasp of the virtually naked serf was in vain; his nails broke off against, or glided harmlessly over the polished armor of his adversary, while the latter, finally succeeding in planting his two knees upon the serf's chest, bruised his head and face with a shower of hammer blows dealt with his iron gauntlet. His face beaten to pulp and bleeding, Mazurec pronounced once more the name of Aveline and remained motionless. Gerard of Chaumontel, who was gradually regaining his sight, not satisfied with having almost beaten the serf's face out of shape, then drew his dagger to finish his victim. But quickly recalling himself, and animated by a feeling of refined cruelty, he replaced the dagger in his belt, rose upright, and placing one of his iron shod feet upon the chest of the prostrate and moaning Mazurec, cried in a stentorian voice: "Let this vile impostor be bound up, put in a bag and thrown into the river as he deserves. It is the law of the duel; let it be carried out!"
CHAPTER V.
SHEET LIGHTNINGS.
An oppressive silence followed the close of the judicial combat, as Gerard of Chaumontel, leaving the outstretched body of the serf on the sand, rejoined his seconds while rubbing his irritated eyelids, and jointly they quitted the arena. The sergeant-at-arms had proceeded to pick up the prostrate body of the vassal in order to carry it to the bridge that spanned the near-by river; and the vicar of Nointel had followed on the tracks of the mournful train, in order to administer the last sacraments to the condemned man so soon as he should recover consciousness, and before he was bundled into a bag, agreeable to the ordinance, and cast into the river. For a moment struck dumb with terror by the issue of the judicial combat, the plebs crowd was slowly recovering its voice, and, despite its habit of respect towards the seigneurs, had begun to murmur with rising indignation. Several voices were heard to say that the knight having been unhorsed by the vassal, the latter was to be considered the victor and should not be killed. The turmoil was on the increase, when an unexpected event suddenly drew to itself the attention of the crowd and cut short its criminations. A large troop of men-at-arms, covered with dust and one of whom bore a white flag emblazoned with the fleur-de-lis,[4] hove in sight at a distance over the field and rapidly approached the fenced-in arena. Mazurec was forgotten. Sharing the astonishment of the assembled nobility at the sight of the armed troop that had now reached the barriers, the Sire of Nointel applied both spurs to his horse, rode rapidly forward, and addressing himself to one of the new arrivals, a herald with the fleur-de-lis jacket, saluted him courteously and inquired:
"Sir herald, what brings you hither?"
"An order of the King, my master. I am charged with a message to all the seigneurs and noblemen of Beauvoisis. Having learned that a large number of them were gathered at this place, I came hither. Listen to the envoy of King John."
"Enter the lists and read your message aloud," answered Conrad of Nointel to the herald, who, producing a parchment from a richly embroidered bag, rode to the center of the arena and prepared to read.