It was a handsome sight, a beautiful sight--for a man up a tree.

I laid my lance in rest and waited, with my heart beating, till the iron wave was just ready to break over me, then spouted a column of white smoke through the bars of my helmet.

You should have seen the wave go to pieces and scatter! This was a finer sight than the other one.
But these people stopped, two or three hundred yards away, and this troubled me.

My satisfaction collapsed, and fear came; I judged I was a lost man.

But Sandy was radiant; and was going to be eloquent--but I stopped her, and told her my magic had miscarried, somehow or other, and she must mount, with all despatch, and we must ride for life.