Meanwhile, the chess combat continued with unabated spirit. Here Philemon's king stood pretty firmly guarded by both his knights, one castle, one bishop, and a body of common soldiers[218]--impenetrable as the Grecian phalanx, or Roman legion; while his queen had made a sly sortie to surprise the only surviving knight of Narcottus. Narcottus, on the other hand, was cautiously collecting his scattered foot soldiers, and, with two bishops, and two castle-armed elephants, were meditating a desperate onset to retrieve the disgrace of his lost queen. An inadvertent remark from Lysander, concerning the antiquity of the game, attracted the attention of Philemon so much as to throw him off his guard; while his queen, forgetful of her sex, and venturing unprotected, like Penthesilea of old, into the thickest of the fight, was trampled under foot, without mercy,[219] by a huge elephant, carrying a castle of armed men upon his back. Shouts of applause, from Narcottus's men, rent the vaulted air; while grief and consternation possessed the astonished army of Philemon. "Away with your antiquarian questions," exclaimed the latter, looking sharply at Lysander: "away with your old editions of the Game of Chess! The moment is critical; and I fear the day may be lost. Now for desperate action!" So saying, he bade the King exhort his dismayed subjects. His Majesty made a spirited oration; and called upon _Sir Launcelot_, the most distinguished of the two Knights,[220] to be mindful of his own and of his country's honour: to spare the effusion of blood among his subjects as much as possible; but rather to place victory or defeat in the comparative skill of the officers: and, at all events, to rally round that throne which had conferred such high marks of distinction upon his ancestors. "I needed not, gracious sire," replied Sir Launcelot--curbing in his mouth-foaming steed, and fixing his spear in the rest--"I needed not to be here reminded of your kindness to my forefathers, or of the necessity of doing every thing, at such a crisis, beseeming the honour of a true round-table knight.--Yes, gracious sovereign, I swear to you by the love I bear to THE LADY OF THE LAKE[221]--by the remembrance of the soft moments we have passed together in the honey-suckle bowers of her father--by all that an knight of chivalry is taught to believe the most sacred and binding--I swear that I will not return this day alive without the laurel of victory entwined round my brow. Right well do I perceive that deeds and not words must save us now--let the issue of the combat prove my valour and allegiance." Upon this, Sir Launcelot clapped spurs to his horse, and after driving an unprotected Bishop into the midst of the foot-soldiers, who quickly took him prisoner, he sprang forward, with a lion-like nimbleness and ferocity, to pick out _Sir Galaad_, the only remaining knight in the adverse army, to single combat. Sir Galaad, strong and wary, like the Greenland bear when assailed by the