has sweets; so they say, at least."

"Not with power and glory gone.--We yield not, Sir Knight," answered
the marquis, in a calm tone.

"Then die, and make room for the new men whom ye so have scorned!"
exclaimed a fierce voice; and Ratcliffe, who had neared the spot,
dismounted and hallooed on his bloodhounds.

Seven points might the shadow have traversed on the dial, and, before
Warwick's axe and Montagu's sword, seven souls had gone to judgment.
In that brief crisis, amidst the general torpor and stupefaction and
awe of the bystanders, round one little spot centred still a war.

But numbers rushed on numbers, as the fury of conflict urged on the
lukewarm. Montagu was beaten to his knee, Warwick covered him with
his body; a hundred axes resounded on the earl's stooping casque, a
hundred blades gleamed round the joints of his harness. A
simultaneous cry was heard; over the mounds of the slain, through the
press into the shadow of the oaks, dashed Gloucester's charger. The
conflict had ceased, the executioners stood mute in a half-circle.
Side by side, axe and sword still griped in their iron hands, lay
Montagu and Warwick.

The young duke, his visor raised, contemplated the fallen foes in
silence. Then dismounting, he unbraced with his own hand the earl's
helmet. Revived for a moment by the air, the hero's eyes unclosed,
his lips moved, he raised, with a feeble effort, the gory battle-axe,
and the armed crowd recoiled in terror. But the earl's soul, dimly
conscious, and about to part, had escaped from that scene of strife,