Aude understood all, and wished to interpose.
“Sire, you will not suffer so brave a knight to be slain——”
Charlemagne shook his head sadly. “I know Miton, and nothing will prevent him from carrying out his enterprise.”
Then turning towards the suite of the Queen of Beauty, he said—
“I have among you, ladies, a cruel foe, who thus devotes to death one of my bravest knights. Let us say the prayer for the dead on behalf of the victim of this relentless beauty.”
All rose, and repeated the supplication in a low voice, Turpin leading them. The terrified Mita alone had not the power to rise. She sank on her knees, and would have remained there motionless and overcome, had not her sister raised her.
In the meantime Miton, ignorant of what was passing, and not even hearing the shouts of the crowd, or the entreaties of his comrades, who begged him not to devote himself in this way to destruction—
Miton, gay and proud, to think of the trial he was subjected to, had made all his dispositions for the combat.