other with fifty yards of grass between. The visors had been
closed, and every man was now cased in metal from head to foot, some few
glowing in brass, the greater number shining in steel. Only their fierce
eyes could be seen smoldering in the dark shadow of their helmets. So
for an instant they stood glaring and crouching.

Then with a loud cry of "Allez!" the herald dropped his upraised hand,
and the two lines of men shuffled as fast as their heavy armor would
permit until they met with a sharp clang of metal in the middle of the
field. There was a sound as of sixty smiths working upon their anvils.
Then the babel of yells and shouts from the spectators, cheering on this
party or that, rose and swelled until even the uproar of the combat was
drowned in that mighty surge.

So eager were the combatants to engage that in a few moments all order
had been lost and the two bands were mixed up in one furious scrambling,
clattering throng, each man tossed hither and thither, thrown against
one adversary and then against another, beaten and hustled and buffeted,
with only the one thought in his mind to thrust with his spear or to
beat with his ax against anyone who came within the narrow slit of
vision left by his visor.

But alas for Nigel and his hopes of some great deed! His was at least
the fate of the brave, for he was the first to fall. With a high heart
he had placed himself in the line as nearly opposite to Beaumanoir as he
could, and had made straight for the Breton leader, remembering that in
the out set the quarrel had been so ordered that it lay between them.
But ere he could reach his goal he was caught in the swirl of his own
comrades, and being the lighter man was swept aside and dashed into the
arms of Alain de Karanais, the left-handed swordsman, with such a crash
that the two rolled upon the ground together. Light footed as a cat,
Nigel had sprung up first, and was stooping over the Breton Squire when
the powerful dwarf Raguenel brought his mace thudding down upon the
exposed back of his helmet. With a groan Nigel fell upon his face, blood
gushing from his mouth, nose, and ears. There he lay, trampled over by
either party, while that great fight for which his fiery soul had panted
was swaying back and forward above his unconscious form.

But Nigel was not long unavenged. The huge iron club of Belford struck
the dwarf Raguenel to the ground, while Belford in turn was felled by a
sweeping blow from Beaumano