mered eerily on his shield, turned his helmet to silver. His armor
seemed to emit an unearthly light--a light that was at once terrifying
and transcendent. The hilt of his sword was as blood-red as the cross
on his shield; so was the pommel of his spear. Here was righteousness
incarnate. Here in the form of an armored man on horseback was the
quintessence of the Age of Chivalry--not the Age of Chivalry as
exemplified by the vain and boasting nobles who had constituted
nine-tenths of the knight-errantry profession and who had used the
quest of the Holy Grail as an excuse to seek after mead and maidens,
but the Age of Chivalry as it might have been if the ideal behind it
had been shared by the many instead of by the few; the Age of
Chivalry, in short, as it had come down to posterity through the pages
of Malory's _Le Morte d'Arthur_.

At length the knight spoke: "I hight Sir Galahad of the Table Round."

Reluctantly, Mallory encephalopathed his two rohorses to halt, and
said the only thing he had left to say: "I hight Sir Thomas of the
castle _Yore_."

"By whose leave bear ye likenesses of the red arms and the white
shield whereon shines the red cross the which was put there by Joseph
of Arimathea whilst he lay dying in his deadly bed?"

Mallory did not answer.

There was silence. Then, "I would joust with ye," Sir Galahad said.

There it was, laid right on the line. The challenge--

The death sentence.

Nonsense! Mallory told himself. He's nothing but a nineteen-year old
kid. With your rohorse and your superior weapons you can unseat him in
two seconds flat, and once he's down, that glorified junk pile he's
wearing will glue him to the ground so fast he won't be able to lift a
finger!

Aloud, he said, "Have at me then!"

Instantly, Sir Galahad wheeled his horse around and rode to the far
side of the meadow. There, he wheeled the horse around again and
dressed his spear. Moonlight danced a silvery saraband on his white
shield, and the blood-red cross blurred and seemed to run.

Mallory dressed his own spear. Immediately, Sir Galahad charged.
_Full speed ahead, Easy Money!_ Mallory encephalopathed, and the
rohorse took off like a rocket.

All he had to do was to hang on tight, and the joust would be in the
bag, he reassured himself. Sir Galahad's spear would break like a
matchstick, while his own superior spear would penetrate Sir Galahad's
shield as though the shield was made of tissue paper, as in a sense