“At least this is sure, you also look your last upon the moon.  I am avenged already.  The bait that hooked me is a meal for yonder pike, and he will kill you both before her eyes to whet his appetite.”

But the brethren answered nothing.

The black horse of Lozelle grew dim in the distance of the moonlit bridge, and vanished beneath the farther archway that led to the outer city.  Then a herald cried, Masouda translating his words, which another herald echoed from beyond the gulf.

“Thrice will the trumpets blow.  At the third blast of the trumpets the knights shall charge and meet in the centre of the bridge.  Thenceforward they may fight as it pleases them, ahorse, or afoot, with lance, with sword, or with dagger, but to the vanquished no mercy will be shown.  If he be brought living from the bridge, living he shall be cast into the gulf.  Hear the decree of the Al-je-bal!”

Then Wulf’s horse was led forward to the entrance of the bridge, and from the further side was led forward the horse of Lozelle.

“Good luck, brother,” said Godwin, as he passed him.  “Would that I rode this course instead of you.”

“Your turn may come, brother,” answered the grim Wulf, as he set his lance in rest.

Now from some neighbouring tower pealed out the first long blast of trumpets, and dead silence fell on all the multitude.  Grooms came forward to look to girth and bridle and stirrup strap, but Wulf waved them back.

“I mind my own harness,” he said.

The second blast blew, and he loosened the great sword in its scabbard, that sword which had flamed in his forbear’s hand upon the turrets of Jerusalem.

“Your gift,” he cried back to Rosamund, and her answer came clear and sweet: 

“Bear it like your fathers, Wulf.  Bear it as it was last borne in the hall at Steeple.”

Then there was another silence—­a silence long and deep.  Wulf looked at the white and narrow ribbon of the bridge, looked at the black gulf on either side, looked at the blue sky above, in which floated the great globe of the golden moon.  Then he leant forward and patted Smoke upon the neck.

For the third time the trumpets blew, and from either end of that bridge, two hundred paces long, the knights flashed towards each other like living bolts of steel.  The multitude rose to watch; even Sinan rose.  Only Rosamund sat still, gripping the cushions with her hands.  Hollow rang the hoofs of the horses upon the stonework, swifter and swifter they flew, lower and lower bent the knights upon their saddles.  Now they were near, and now they met.  The spears seemed to shiver, the horses to hustle together on the narrow way and overhang its edge, then on came the black horse towards the inner city, and on sped Smoke towards the further gulf.

“They have passed!  They have passed!” roared the multitude.

Look!  Lozelle approached, reeling in his saddle, as well he might, for the helm was torn from his head and blood ran from his skull where the lance had grazed it.