When the hour of combat arrived he vanished into the painted pavilion reserved for him at one end of the lists, accompanied only by his faithful esquire. Hastily he donned his suiting of reinforced ox-hide, which covered the whole of his person from head to foot, and hung stiffly in folds all round him. Then, holding out a metal tube which was attached to the front of the costume, he presented it to his esquire, saying in the vernacular of those stout times—
"Ho, varlet! Blow me down yon hole till there be no more breath in thy vile bodie. Blow me hard and leally. Blow an thou burst in ye blowinge."
Whereupon the trusty varlet blew.
Thus it fell out that when the trumpet sounded and the Black Baron of Beaumaris, his foe, rode forth from his sable pavilion, armed cap-à-pie in a suit of highly-polished steel and bestriding a black and rather over-dressed charger, he saw through the chinks of his lowered visor an object which he would undoubtedly have mistaken for a diminutive observation balloon if he had lived a few centuries later. In short, Sir Bowles, having been sufficiently inflated by his now exhausted esquire, had inserted his valve-pin into the tube (which he had tucked away and laced up like an association football), and now emerged upon the lists with a feeling of elation that he had not experienced for several days.
They approached each other. It was with some difficulty that our hero wielded his mace, owing, first, to the inflated condition of his right arm, and, secondly, to the unaccustomed weight of the weapon. His hold also upon his curvetting steed was a little precarious, and he hoped that no one in the crowd would notice the string that tied his legs together beneath the horse's belly.
If the Baron was surprised at what he saw he made no sign, but, riding straight at his strange antagonist, he dealt him a mighty blow on the left side of the head, which had quite an unlooked-for result. The string which attached our hero's legs held, it is true, but he naturally lost his balance, and, being knocked to the right, disappeared temporarily from the Baron's view. But the force of his swing was such that, at the moment when he was head downwards under the horse, he still had enough way on to bring him up again on the other side. No sooner had he regained a vertical position than the Baron repeated the blow on the same spot and with the same result.
Then the same thing happened again and again; and indeed Sir Bowles might have revolved indefinitely, to the intense delight of the distinguished audience, had not the string broken at the thirty-fourth revolution.
Now the involuntary movements of our hero had accelerated at every turn, and when finally he parted company with his trusty steed he was going very fast indeed. Falling near the edge of the lists, he found touch, first bounce, in the Royal Box, whence some officious persons rolled him back again into the field of play.
It must not be supposed that poor Sir Bowles was comfortable during these proceedings. The rather ingenious apparatus whereby he had hoped to catch a glimpse of his adversary had got out of order at the first onslaught, and he was in total darkness. Moreover, he soon discovered that the haughty Baron was taking all sorts of liberties with him; was slogging him round the lists; in short, was playing polo with him.