then retiring to
their posts, gave way to beautiful pages, mounted on elegant palfreys,
and attired in costly silken dresses of light blue, bedizened with
ribbons, and bearing a turban of crimson velvet with white feathers.
These pages carried before them the light and slender lances
appropriated for the games, and having deposited them near the queen,
they retired and took their stations opposite to the troop of heralds
and black musicians.

The attention of the public was then simultaneously attracted to the
four corners of the lists, from whence four quadrilles of equestrians
proceeded, all vieing with each other in the richness of their dresses,
the splendor of ornaments, and the gaiety of their bearing. These
quadrilles were distinguished by the different colours which they wore,
and out of each were selected three champions to dispute the prize. At
the signal given, they started severally according to the order of
precedence, which had been obtained by casting lots, and in the first
course seven candidates passed their lances clearly through the ring,
carrying it along in their headlong career.

The music sounded a flourish, and the seven competitors underwent
another trial, in which only two were successful--young Garcilaso, and
Antonio de Leyva. The contest was now to be divided by the two, and pink
and green were the colours that contended for the victory; accordingly
their quadrilles, as well as the spectators of both sexes who had
adopted those colours, awaited the result of the contest, with anxious
suspense. Garcilaso now made a graceful curvet, and spring at once with
the celerity of an arrow, in the middle of his precipitous career he
extended his lance with perfect ease and dexterity, and again carried
away the ring. Don Antonio next advanced; and having indulged for a
short space in several feats of horsemanship, he sped towards the
honored tree on which was suspended victory or defeat. His horsemanship
was so perfect that, excepting the feather on his head which streamed
before the wind, all appeared like the figure of a centaur, flying
meteor-like along the plain. His lance, however, missed the middle of
the ring, and touching one of its edges, such was the rapidity of Don
Antonio's motion that the ring sprung high in the air, when the
dexterous cavalier, to the admiration of the surrounding multitude,
turned short, and before the ring had time to fall, he caught it fairly
with his lance. This extra