But the king did not appear to have heard him; he was already armed, and he seized his lance.
Gabriel was handed his, and also entered the lists.
The two combatants mounted their horses and took the field.
A deep, awful silence pervaded the entire assemblage; all eyes were so intent upon the spectacle before them that breathing seemed almost to be suspended.
However, the constable and Diane de Castro being absent, every one in that vast throng, except Madame de Poitiers, was in ignorance of the fact that there were between the king and the Comte de Montgommery any causes of enmity or any wrongs to be avenged. No one clearly foreboded a bloody issue to a mock combat. The king, accustomed to these sports unattended with danger, had shown himself in the arena a hundred times within three days, under conditions which apparently differed in no respect from those existing at this moment.
And yet there was a vague sensation of something awe-inspiring and out of the common course in this adversary who had remained shrouded in mystery until the very end, in his significant reluctance to enter the lists,—likewise in the king's stubborn obstinacy; and in the face of this unknown danger, every one waited in breathless silence. Why? No one could have told. But a stranger arriving at that moment, and observing the expression on every face, would have said,—
"Some critical event is about to take place."
There was terror in the very air.
One extraordinary circumstance demonstrated clearly the sinister complexion of the thoughts of the throng.
In ordinary combats, and as long as they lasted, the clarions and trumpets never ceased their deafening flourishes. They were the very incarnation of the spirit of enjoyment that pervaded the tournament.