There was but one question: might there be still other enchantments, unknown to Merlin, which could render Sir Sagramor’s veil transparent to me, and make his enchanted mail vulnerable to my weapons? This was the one thing to be decided in the lists.

Until then the world must remain in suspense.

So the world thought there was a vast matter at stake here, and the world was right, but it was not the one they had in their minds. No, a far vaster one was upon the cast of this die: the life of knight-errantry. I was a champion, it was true, but not the champion of the frivolous black arts, I was the champion of hard unsentimental common-sense and reason. I was entering the lists to either destroy knight-errantry or be its victim.

Vast as the