Passing through the gardens they came again to the highway skirting the palace. Men, women, brats, monks, all Christendom, seemed swarming up from the city, and there was already a great throng in the street. The breeze of shouting came nearer each moment. Igraine climbed the pediment of a statue that rose above the balustrading of the gardens; the ledge gave room to both Lilith and herself. Together they stood and looked down on the crowd that began to swarm at their feet--soldiers, nobles, dirty craftsmen, courtezans, fat housewives, churchmen--their small prides lost in one common curiousness. The street seemed mosaicked with colour. The broken words and cries of the crowd were flung up to Igraine like so much foam. "Gorlois, say you?" "Noble Gorlois." "A thousand heathen." "What--all slain!" "Where?" "Under the walls of Anderida." "Come to my house and I will give you red wine, and play to you on the cithern." "Thank the Virgin." "Great Gorlois." "If it is true I'll burn twenty candles." "Give over trampling me." "A thousand heathen." "Ho! there--some rogue's thieved my purse." "They are coming." "Let's shout for him." "Great Gorlois." Up between the stone fronts of the palace and the dwindling houses and the rolling green of the gardens came a blaze of gold and purple, of white, green, blue, and scarlet, a gross glare of steel thundered on with the tramp of men and the cry of many voices. A river of armour seemed to flow with a brazen magnificence between the innumerable heads of the crowd. Clarions were braying, banneroles adance. The sun flashed on helmet and shield, and made a brave blaze on the flanks of the great serpent of war as it swayed through the thundering street, arrogant, triumphant, glorious. Well in the van rode a knight on a great white horse. His armour was all of gold, his trappings white with gold borders, and stars of gold scattered thereon. His baldric was set with jasper, his sword and scabbard marvellous with beryl and sardonyx. A coronet gemmed with one great ruby circled his casque, and shot red gleams at the archer sun. Behind him came a veritable grove of spears,--lusty knights, their saddles weighed down with the spoil of battle, with torque, bracelet, sword, and axe. Further yet came pikemen, mass on mass, bearing each on his spear-point a heathen head,--pageant of leers, frowns, scowls of red wrath, wild eyes, blood, and blood-tangled hair. The great knight on the white horse rode with a certain splendid arrogance, and his eyes were full of fire under the arch of his casque. It was easy to see that the noise and pomp were like wine to him, and that his pride blazed like a beacon in a wind. "Gorlois, great Gorlois!" thundered the crowd.