h down the narrow dark lanes of the
town to where the place was ruinous with old houses left forsaken by
their Roman masters when they had gone from Britain fifty years before.

Merlin led them to a great squat tower which stood beside the wall,
wherein a single light gleamed at a high window. Causing some to
surround this place, Merlin led others to a broken door, and there they
entered in. Then was there a sudden uproar and fierce fighting in the
rooms and up the narrow stairs.

In the darkness King Lot, with a hundred knights, burst out through a
rear door, and thought to escape; but King Arthur with his knights
waylaid them, and slew on the right and on the left, doing such deeds
that all took pride in his bravery and might of arms. Fiercely did King
Lot press forward, and to his aid came Sir Caradoc, who set upon King
Arthur in the rear.

Arthur drew from his side the sword he had so marvellously taken from
the stone, and in the darkness it flashed as if it were thirty torches,
and it dazzled his enemies' eyes, so that they gave way.

By this time the common people of Caerleon had heard the great outcry
and the clang of swords on armour. Learning of the jeopardy of their
beloved king from midnight murderers, they ran to the tower, and with
clubs and staves and bills they slew many of the men of the evil kings,
putting the rest to flight. But the six kings were still unharmed, and
with the remnant of their knights fled and departed in the darkness.

A few days later King Arthur journeyed back to London, and on an
evening when, in the twilight, he stood upon the roof of the palace
overlooking the broad Thames, he was aware of a shadow beside him where
no shadow had been before. Before he could cross himself against the
evil powers of wizardry and glamour, the steel-blue eyes of Merlin
looked out from the cloud, and the magician's voice spoke to him as if
from a great distance.

'I stand beneath the shaggy brows of the Hill of Tanyshane,' said the
voice, 'and I look down into the courtyard of the castle of King Lot.
There I see the gathering of men, the flash of torches on their
hauberks, the glitter of helms, and the blue gleams of swords. I have
passed through these northern lands, from the windswept ways of Alclwyd
to the quaking marshes of the Humber. Eleven castles have I seen, and
each is filled with the clang of beating iron, the glow of smiths'
fires and the hissing of new-tempered steel. Call thy counci