From all sides, with cries of dismay, with oaths and shouts and ejaculations to the saints, the horsemen ride wildly in. Was ever so dreadful, so sudden, so complete, an end to a gentle passage at arms? Surely their eyes must be at fault? Some wizard's trick has been played upon them to deceive their senses. But no, it was only too clear. There on the greensward lay the trunk of the stricken cavalier, and there, a good dozen yards beyond, lay his helmeted head.
"By the Virgin!" cried Manny wildly, as he jumped from his horse, "I would give my last gold piece that the work of this evening should be undone! How came it? What does it mean? Hither, my Lord Bishop, for surely it smacks of witchcraft and the Devil."
With a white face the Bishop had sprung down beside the prostrate body, pushing through the knot of horrified knights and squires.
"I fear that the last offices of the Holy Church come too late," said he in a quivering voice. "Most unfortunate young man! How sudden an end! In medio vitae, as the Holy Book has it - one moment in the pride of his youth, the next his head torn from his body. Now God and his saints have mercy upon me and guard me from evil!"
The last prayer was shot out of the Bishop with an energy and earnestness unusual in his orisons. It was caused by the sudden outcry of one of the Squires who, having lifted the helmet from the ground, cast it down again with a scream of horror.
"It is empty!" he cried. "It weighs as light as a feather."
"'Fore God, it is true!" cried Manny, laying his hand on it. "There is no one in it. With what have I fought, father Bishop? Is it of this world or of the next?"
The Bishop had clambered on his horse the better to consider the point. "If the foul fiend is abroad," said he, "my place is over yonder by the King's side. Certes that sulphur-colored horse hath a very devilish look. I could have sworn that I saw both smoke and flame from its nostrils. The beast is fit to bear a suit of armor which rides and fights and yet hath no man within it."
"Nay, not too fast, father Bishop," said one of the knights. "It may be all that you say and yet come from a human workshop. When I made a campaign in South Germany I have seen at Nuremberg a cunning figure, devised by an armorer, which could both ride and wield a sword. If this be such a one - "
"I thank you all for your very gentle courtesy," said a booming voice from the figure upon the ground.
At the words even the valiant Manny sprang into his saddle. Some rode madly away from the horrid trunk. A few of the boldest lingered.
"Most of all," said the voice, "would I thank the most noble knight, Sir Walter Manny, that he should deign to lay aside his greatness and condescend to do a deed of arms upon so humble a Squire."
"'Fore God!" said Manny, " if this be the Devil, then the Devil hath a very courtly tongue. I will have him out of his armor, if he blast me!"
So saying he sprang once more from his horse and plunging his hand down the slit in the collapsed gorget he closed it tightly upon a fistful of Nigel's yellow curls. The groan that came forth was enough to convince him that it was indeed a man who lurked within. At the same time his eyes fell upon the hole in the mail corselet which had served the Squire as a vizor, and he burst into deep-chested mirth. The King, the Prince and Chandos, who had watched the scene from a distance, too much amused by it to explain or interfere, rode up weary with laughter, now that all was discovered.
"Let him out!" said the King, with his hand to his side. "I pray you to unlace him and let him out! I have shared in many a spear-running, but never have I been nearer falling from my horse than as I watched this one. I feared the fall had struck him senseless, since he lay so still."
Nigel had indeed lain with all the breath shaken from his body, and as he was unaware that his helmet had been carried off, he had not understood either the alarm or the amusement that he had caused.