ading on a fresh troop of shouting Welchmen
who had forced their way from another part, was a form which seemed
charmed against arrow and spear. For the defensive arms of this chief
were as slight as if worn but for ornament: a small corselet of gold
covered only the centre of his breast, a gold collar of twisted wires
circled his throat, and a gold bracelet adorned his bare arm, dropping
gore, not his own, from the wrist to the elbow. He was small and
slight-shaped--below the common standard of men--but he seemed as one
made a giant by the sublime inspiration of war. He wore no helmet,
merely a golden circlet; and his hair, of deep red (longer than was usual
with the Welch), hung like the mane of a lion over his shoulders, tossing
loose with each stride. His eyes glared like the tiger's at night, and
he leaped on the spears with a bound. Lost a moment amidst hostile
ranks, save by the swift glitter of his short sword, he made, amidst all,
a path for himself and his followers, and emerged from the heart of the
steel unscathed and loud-breathing; while, round the line he had broken,
wheeled and closed his wild men, striking, rushing, slaying, slain.

"Pardex, this is war worth the sharing," said the knight. "And now,
worthy Sexwolf, thou shalt see if the Norman is the vaunter thou deemest
him. Dieu nous aide! Notre Dame!--Take the foe in the rear." But
turning round, he perceived that Sexwolf had already led his men towards
the standard, which showed them where stood the Earl, almost alone in his
peril. The knight, thus left to himself, did not hesitate:--a minute
more, and he was in the midst of the Welch force, headed by the chief
with the golden panoply. Secure in his ring mail against the light
weapons of the Welch, the sweep of the Norman sword was as the scythe of
Death. Right and left he smote through the throng which he took in the
flank, and had almost gained the small phalanx of Saxons, that lay firm
in the midst, when the Cymrian Chief's flashing eye was drawn to his new
and strange foe, by the roar and the groan round the Norman's way; and
with the half-naked breast against the shirt of mail, and the short Roman
sword against the long Norman falchion, the Lion King of Wales fronted
the knight.

Unequal as seems the encounter, so quick was the spring of the Briton, so
pliant his arm, and so rapid his weapon, that that good knight (who
rather from skill and valour than brute physical strength, ranked