The esquire bent his knee, and delivered his message.
The king laughed loud and lightly.
“By our Lady, this is good,” he said. “Heard ye ever the like of this, my lords? What spell doth our brave Montgomeri bear about him, that we may not meet him even as others in friendly combat? Back to your royal mistress, Conrad; commend us in all love and duty to her grace, and say we will break this lance unto her honour. Would she have our noble guests proclaim Montgomeri so brave and skilful that Henri dared not meet him even after his challenge had gone forth? Shame, shame, on such advisers!”
The esquire withdrew, and the king taking a new lance, and mounting a fresh charger, slowly proceeded round the lists, attended by pages and esquires, and managing his fiery steed so gracefully as to rivet on him many admiring glances. He paused beneath the queen’s gallery, doffing his deep-plumed helmet a moment in the respectful greeting of a faithful chevalier; then looking up, he smiled proudly and undauntedly. At that moment the trumpets proclaimed the entrance of the challenged, and the king hastily replacing his helmet, clasped it but slightly, and galloped to his post.
A loud shout of welcome greeted the appearance of Montgomeri, and as the spectators marked the pink and white scarf across his shoulder, and the opal clasp that secured the deep plumes of his helmet, all eyes involuntarily turned to see the fair being to whom those colours proclaimed him vowed; nor when they traced the bandeau of opals on the pale high brow of Idalie de Montemar, her flowing robes secured by a girdle of the same precious stones, and discovered it was to her service the knight was pledged, did they marvel that at length the cold, stern, unbending Gabriel de Lorges had bowed beneath the spell of love.
The lists were cleared, and deep silence reigned amidst the assembled thousands. The combatants, ere the signal sounded, slowly traversed the lists, meeting at both extremities, and greeting each other in all solemn and chivalric fashion. Montgomeri’s lance sank as he saluted the queen’s pavilion, but it was to Idalie his lowest homage was tendered. She sought to smile in answer; but her lip only quivered, for her eye, awakened by love, could trace his deep reluctance to accept the challenge.
The signal was given, and with a shock and sound as of thunder the knights met in the centre of the course. The lances of both shivered. A loud and ringing shout echoed far and wide, forming a deep bass to the military music bursting forth at the same moment; but then the sound changed, and so suddenly, that the shout of triumph seemed turned, by the very breeze which bore it along, to the cries of wailing and despair. The horses of both combatants were seen careering wildly, and with empty saddles, round the lists. Princes, nobles, and knights crowded so swiftly and in such numbers to the spot where the combatants had met, that the eager populace could trace nothing but that one warrior was down and seemingly senseless, the which no one could assert. Order and restraint gave place to the wildest tumult; the people, en masse, rushed indiscriminately into the lists, heedless of the efforts of the men-at-arms to keep them back, and scarcely restrained even by the rapid and agitated approach of the queen consort and the princesses towards the principal group. Words of terrific import were whispered one to another, till the whisper grew loud and rumour became certainty. The music ceased, save the solitary flourish of trumpets proclaiming the warlike sports concluded. As if by magic, the lists were cleared, the tents struck, and every trace of the tournament removed. But even then the popular ferment continued; there were men hurrying to and fro, little knots of persons assembling in the street, speaking in anxious whispers, or hastening in silence to their homes. Ever and anon the muffled tone of heavy bells came borne on the air, and then the dead silence, ever the shapeless herald of some dread calamity. Ere night all trace of the morning’s glittering splendour and animated life had disappeared, and Paris seemed changed into a very desert of solitude and gloom.
II.
Eleven days had passed since the sudden termination of the fatal tournament, and Henri of France still lay speechless and insensible as he had fallen in the lists, when, from the insecure fastening of his helmet, it had given way before the lance of Montgomeri, and caused him to receive the full force of the blow on his eyebrow, thence fatally injuring the brain. Still life was not extinct, and, though against all reason, hopes were still entertained by many for his eventual recovery. In one of the apartments of the Louvre, forming the suite of the queen dauphine, sat the unfortunate Comte de Montgomeri and his betrothed bride. Sometimes sanguine that Henri would, nay, must recover; at others plunged in the depth of despair—had been the alternate moods of the count during these eleven days. His friends conjured him to lose no time in retiring from France, at least for a time; and Idalie herself, though she shrunk from the idea of parting, with an indefinable feeling of foreboding dread, yet so trembled for his safety if he remained, as to add her solicitations to those of others. Still the count lingered. The very thought of his having been the ill-fated hand to give the death-blow to the monarch he revered, and the friend he loved, was too horrible to be realized. He could not believe that such would be; yet so dark was his despair, so agonizing his self-accusations, that even his interviews with Idalie had lost their soothing sweetness, and he did but deplore that her pure love had been given to one so darkly fated as himself.
It was after one of these bursts of misery that the Comte de Montemar, who had been engaged with papers at the further end of the apartment, approached and sought to comfort him by an appeal to those holier feelings, which Montgomeri possessed in a much higher degree than most of his countrymen.