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my loop around my head again. I was sure to have use for it as soon as they could elect a successor for Sir Sagramor, and that couldn't take long where there were so many hungry candidates. Indeed, they elected one straight off-Sir Hervis de Revel.

Bzz! Here he came, like a house afire; I dodged: he passed like a flash, with my horse-hair coils settling around his neck; a second or so later, fst! his saddle was empty.

I got another encore; and another, and another, and still another. When I had snaked five men out, things began to look serious to the ironclads, and they stopped and consulted together. As a result, they decided that it was time to waive etiquette and send their greatest and best against me. To the astonishment of that little world, I lassoed Sir Lamorak de Galis, and after him Sir Galahad. So you see there was simply nothing to be done now, but play their right bower-bring out the superbest of the superb, the mightiest of the mighty, the great Sir Launcelot himself!

A proud moment for me? I should think so. Yonder was Arthur, King of Britain; yonder was Guinevere; yes, and whole tribes of little provincial kings and kinglets; and in the tented camp yonder, renowned knights from many lands; and likewise the selectest body known to chivalry, the Knights of the Table Round, the most illustrious in Christendom; and biggest fact of all, the very sun of their shining system was yonder couching his lance, the focal point of forty thousand adoring eyes; and all by myself, here was I laying for him. Across my mind flitted the dear image of a certain hello-girl of West Hartford, and I wished she could see me now. In that moment, down came the Invincible, with the rush of a whirlwind-the courtly world rose to its feet and bent forward-the fateful coils went circling through the air, and before you could wink I was towing Sir Launcelot across the field on his back, and kissing my hand to the storm of waving kerchiefs and the thunder-crash of applause that greeted me!

Said I to myself, as I coiled my lariat and hung it on my saddle-horn, and sat there drunk with glory, "The victory is perfect-no other will venture against me-knight-errantry is dead." Now imagine my astonishment-and everybody else's, too-to hear the peculiar buglecall which announces that another competitor is about to enter the lists! There was a mystery here; I couldn't account for this thing. Next, I noticed Merlin gliding away from me; and then I noticed that my lasso was gone! The old sleight-of-hand expert had stolen it, sure, and slipped it under his robe.

The bugle blew again. I looked, and down came Sagramor riding

again, with his dust brushed off and his veil nicely rearranged. I trotted up to meet him, and pretended to find him by the sound of his horse's hoofs. He said:

"Thou'rt quick of ear, but it will not save thee from this!" and he touched the hilt of his great sword. "An ye are not able to see it, because of the influence of the veil, know that it is no cumbrous lance, but a sword—and I ween ye will not be able to avoid it."

His visor was up; there was death in his smile. I should never be able to dodge his sword, that was plain. Somebody was going to die this time. If he got the drop on me, I could name the corpse. We rode forward together, and saluted the royalties. This time the king was disturbed. He said:

"Where is thy strange weapon?"

"It is stolen, sire."

"Hast another at hand?"

"No, sire, I brought only the one."

Then Merlin mixed in:

"He brought but the one because there was but the one to bring. There exists none other but that one. It belongeth to the king of the Demons of the Sea. This man is a pretender, and ignorant; else he had known that that weapon can be used in but eight bouts only, and then it vanisheth away to its home under the sea."

"Then is he weaponless," said the king. "Sir Sagramor, ye will grant him leave to borrow."

"And I will lend!" said Sir Launcelot, limping up. "He is as brave a knight of his hands as any that be on live, and he shall have mine." He put his hand on his sword to draw it, but Sir Sagramor said: "Stay, it may not be. He shall fight with his own weapons; it was his privilege to choose them and bring them. If he has erred, on his head be it."

"Knight!" said the king. "Thou'rt overwrought with passion; it disorders thy mind. Wouldst kill a naked man?”

"An he do it, he shall answer it to me," said Sir Launcelot.

"I will answer it to any he that desireth!" retorted Sir Sagramor hotly.

Merlin broke in, rubbing his hands and smiling his low-downest smile of malicious gratification:

"Tis well said, right well said! And 'tis enough of parleying, let my lord the king deliver the battle signal."

The king had to yield. The bugle made proclamation, and we turned

apart and rode to our stations. There we stood, a hundred yards apart, facing each other, rigid and motionless, like horsed statues. And so

we remained, in a soundless hush, as much as a full minute, everybody gazing, nobody stirring. It seemed as if the king could not take heart to give the signal. But at last he lifted his hand, the clear note of a bugle followed, Sir Sagramor's long blade described a flashing curve in the air, and it was superb to see him come. I sat still. On he came. I did not move. People got so excited that they shouted to me: "Fly, fly! Save thyself! This is murther!"

I never budged so much as an inch till that thundering apparition had got within fifteen paces of me; then I snatched a dragoon. revolver out of my holster, there was a flash and a roar, and the revolver was back in the holster before anybody could tell what had happened.

Here was a riderless horse plunging by, and yonder lay Sir Sagramor, stone dead.

The people that ran to him were stricken dumb to find that the life was actually gone out of the man and no reason for it visible, no hurt upon his body, nothing like a wound. There was a hole through the breast of his chain-mail, but they attached no importance to a little thing like that; and as a bullet-wound there produces but little blood, none came in sight because of the clothing and swaddlings under the armor. The body was dragged over to let the king and the swells look down. upon it. They were stupefied with astonishment naturally. I was requested to come and explain the miracle. But I remained in my tracks, like a statue, and said:

"If it is a command, I will come, but my lord the king knows that I am where the laws of combat require me to remain while any desire to come against me."

I waited. Nobody challenged. Then I said:

"If there are any who doubt that this field is well and fairly won, I do not wait for them to challenge me, I challenge them."

"It is a gallant offer," said the king, "and well beseems you. Whom will you name first?"

"I name none, I challenge all! Here I stand, and dare the chivalry of England to come against me-not by individuals, but in mass!" "What!" shouted a score of knights.

"You have heard the challenge. Take it, or I proclaim you recreant knights and vanquished, every one!"

It was a "bluff" you know. At such a time it is sound judgment to put on a bold face and play your hand for a hundred times what

it is worth; forty-nine times out of fifty nobody dares to "call," and you rake in the chips. But just this once-well, things looked squally! In just no time, five hundred knights were scrambling into their saddles, and before you could wink a widely scattering drove were under way and clattering down upon me. I snatched both revolvers from the holsters and began to measure distances and calculate chances.

Bang! One saddle empty. Bang! another one. Bang-bang, and I bagged two. Well, it was nip and tuck with us, and I knew it. If I spent the eleventh shot without convincing these people, the twelfth man would kill me, sure. And so I never did feel so happy as I did when my ninth downed its man and I detected the wavering in the crowd which is premonitory of panic. An instant lost now could knock out my last chance. But I didn't lose it. I raised both revolvers and pointed them-the halted host stood their ground just about one good square moment, then broke and fled.

The day was mine. Knight-errantry was a doomed institution. The march of civilization was begun. How did I feel? Ah, you never could imagine it.

And Brer Merlin? His stock was flat again. Somehow, every time the magic of fol-de-rol tried conclusions with the magic of science, the magic of fol-de-rol got left.

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

(1836-1907)

Sargent's Portrait of Edwin

Booth at "The Players"

THAT face which no man ever saw
And from his memory banished quite,
With eyes in which are Hamlet's awe
And Cardinal Richelieu's subtle light
Looks from this frame. A master's hand
Has set the master-player here,
In the fair temple that he planned
Not for himself. To us most dear
This image of him! "It was thus

He looked; such pallor touched his cheek;
With that same grace he greeted us-
Nay, 'tis the man, could it but speak!"
Sad words that shall be said some day-
Far fall the day! O cruel Time,
Whose breath sweeps mortal things

away,

Spare long this image of his prime,

That others standing in the place

Where, save as ghosts, we come no more,
May know what sweet majestic face
The gentle Prince of Players wore!

An Ode on the Unveiling of the Shaw Memorial on Boston Common

I

NOT with slow, funereal sound
Come we to this sacred ground;

Not with wailing fife and solemn muffled
drum,

Bringing a cypress wreath

To lay, with bended knee,
On the cold brows of Death-

Not so, dear God, we come,
But with the trumpets' blare
And shot-torn battle-banners flung to air,

As for a victory!

Hark to the measured tread of martial

feet,

The music and the murmurs of the street!

No bugle breathes this day
Disaster and retreat!-
Hark how the iron lips

Of the great battle-ships

Salute the City from her azure Bay!

II

Time was-time was, ah, unforgotten years!

We paid our hero tribute of our tears. But now let go

All sounds and signs and formulas of

woe:

'Tis Life, not Death, we celebrate; To Life, not Death, we dedicate This storied bronze, whereon is wrought

The lithe immortal figure of our

thought,

To show forever to men's eyes,
Our children's children's children's

eyes,

How once he stood

In that heroic mood,

He and his dusky braves
So fain to glorious graves!-
One instant stood, and then

Drave through that cloud of purple steel and flame,

Which wrapt him, held him, gave him not again,

But in the trampled ashes left to Fame An everlasting name!

III

That was indeed to live

At one bold swoop to wrest

From darkling death the best
That death to life can give.

He fell as Roland fell

That day at Roncevaux,

With foot upon the ramparts of the
foe!

A pæan, not a knell,
For heroes dying so!

No need for sorrow here,

No room for sigh or tear,

Save such rich tears as happy eyelid
know.

See where he rides, our Knight!
Within his eyes the light

Of battle, and youth's gold about his
brow;

Our Paladin, our Soldier of the
Cross,

Not weighing gain with loss-
World-loser, that won all
Obeying duty's call!

Not his, at peril's frown,
A pulse of quicker beat;
Not his to hesitate

And parley hold with Fate,
But proudly to fling down.

His gauntlet at her feet.

O soul of loyal valor and white truth,
Here, by this iron gate,

Thy serried ranks about thee as of yore,
Stand thou for evermore

In thy undying youth!

The tender heart, the eagle eye!

Oh, unto him belong

The homages of Song;

Our praises and the praise

Of coming days

To him belong

To him, to him, the dead that shall not

die!

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