Ask them if they think thus to show honor to their King.
Tell them that I take it as no proof of their love; that I will have none of
that halting faith which limps up with a great cry after the show is over.
Tell them--Oh, tell them anything you think worth while--only that you get
some noise out of them! Evil will come of it if the Englishman is allowed to
believe that he has beaten us before ever he has struck a blow."
Rothgar sighed as he moved forward. "I am very unfit to speak words of
cheerfulness to anybody; but this shall, like other things, be as you wish."
Chapter XVII
The Judgment of The Iron Voice
His power should
Every sagacious man
Use with discretion,
For he will find,
When among the bold he comes,
That no one alone is doughtiest.
Ha'vama'l.
Fold by fold, the sun's golden fingers drew apart the mists that hid the
valley. One by one, the red Severn cliffs were uncovered, and the wooded
steeps on which the rival hosts were encamped. Brighter and brighter the
river's silver gleamed through its veilings. Finally the moment came when the
last mist-wreath floated up like a curtain, and there lay open the shining
water, and the rocky islet it seethed about, and the vision of two boats
setting forth from the two shores amid the noise of shouting thousands. It was
the hour of the royal duel, when the fate-thread of a nation, beaded with
human destinies, lay between the fingers of two men.
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