Tall were these men and lusty, bedight from head to foot in glistening mail, alike at all points save that one bare neither shield nor lance, and 'neath his open bascinet showed a face brown and comely, whereas his companion rode, his long shield flashing in the sun, his head and face hid by reason of his ponderous, close-shut casque.

" Then spake the tall knight loud and fierce, his voice deep-booming within the hollow of his closed casque.

I conjured up an imaginary conversation in bad German with an officer in a pointed casque.

Hearing on his return that Isabella was at Otranto in the hands of Manfred, Frederic had travelled thither, and on arriving had beheld the miraculous casque that fulfilled the lines on the sword-blade.

" Thus, within the hour, the trumpets brayed 'to horse' and all was seeming hurry and confusion; yet a confusion, this, governed by soldierly method, so that, ere long, horsemen were mounted and footmen in array what time Beltane, bedight in goodly vizored casque, with lance and shield borne behind him, came where stood Sir Benedict beside a great and noble war-horse.

" Manfred then touched and examined the fatal casque, and inquired whether any man knew from whence it could have come?

So the Duke laughed and closed his vizor and his laughter boomed hollow within his rusty casque, and, leaping to the saddle, rode to the end of the great tilt-yard, and, wheeling, couched his lance.

Yet when he sat at tablethis young officer of the Chasseurs in sky-blue jacket, or this wounded Dragoon with a golden casque and long horse-hair tailhiding an empty sleeve against the woman's side, or concealing the loss of a leg beneath the table cloth, it was wonderful to see the smile that lit up his face and the absence of all pain in it.